LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 

Class 

THE 

TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL 

PHILOSOPHY 


A  TREATISE  OF  EDUCATION  AS 
A  SPECIES  OF  CONDUCT 

(Fifteen  Lectures) 


BY 

GEORGE  TRUMBULL  LADD,  LL.D. 

Author  of  '*  Elements  op  Physiological  Psychology." 

"Psychology  Descriptive  and  Explanatory," 

"  Philosophy  op  Conduct,"  etc.,  etc. 


FUNK   &  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 
I9II 


i:& 


..o.'^ 


Copyright,  1911,  by 

FUNK  &  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 

[Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America] 

Published  September,  1911 


PREFACE 

The  views  set  forth  in  this  volume  are  essentially 
the  same  as  those  given  to  many  thousands  of 
teachers  and  others  interested  in  education,  in 
Japan,  Korea,  and  Hawaii,  during  the  Academic 
year  of  1906-07.  Among  the  Japanese,  especially, 
the  interest  in  the  moral  aspects  and  values  of 
the  system  of  public  education  was  at  that  time 
intense  and  pervasive.  It  embraced  not  only  the 
teachers  as  a  class  and  the  officers  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  the  Department  of  Education,  but  also 
the  leaders  in  the  army  and  navy,  in  business  cir- 
cles, and  in  civil  and  social  affairs.  As  instances 
of  this  interest  I  might  cite  the  remark  of  a  vet- 
eran of  the  Russo-Japanese  war  who  declared  that 
his  principal  anxiety  in  training  the  nearly  thirty 
thousand  recruits  under  his  charge  was  to  give 
them  the  right  '* spiritual  education;"  and  also 
the  fact  that  I  was  repeatedly  urged  into  giving 
additional  courses  of  lectures  on  the  ethics  of  busi- 
ness in  the  Government  Commercial  Colleges, 
where  ethics  is  made  a  required  subject  of  study 
through  one  or  two  years  of  the  course. 

In  this  country  there  has  been  slowly  gathering 
the  conviction  that  our  system  of  education,  from 
the  public  schools  of  primary  graide  to  the  Gradu- 

III 


225887 


iv  PREFACE 

ate  and  Professional  Schools  connected  with  our 
Universities,  has  not  been  productive,  as  it  should 
be,  of  the  right  sort  of  men  and  women  to  conduct 
safely  and  wisely  and  righteously  the  affairs  of 
Church  and  State.  And  there  has  been  of  late, 
and  there  still  is,  much  discussion — some  of  it 
faultfinding  and  criminatory — over  questions  of 
causes  and  remedies,  and  over  the  general  problem 
of  whether  our  recent  movements  have  been  pro- 
gressive or  retrograde.  Into  this  discussion  it  is 
not  the  purpose  of  this  book  to  enter.  Its  pur- 
pose is,  the  rather,  to  emphasize  the  personal  and 
moral  elements  as  those  which,  broadly  understood, 
must  be  relied  upon  to  secure  the  needed  improve- 
ments, if  improvements  are  needed  and  are  to  be 
secured  at  all.  The  author  believes  that  the  lack 
of  discipline,  through  moral  and  religious  motives 
and  in  accordance  with  moral  and  religious  ideals, 
in  the  home-life,  in  school  and  in  college,  and  in 
society  at  large,  is  the  prime  source  of  all  our 
national  evils  so  far  as  they  are  connected  with  the 
educative  processes  as  now  in  vogue.  He  also  be- 
lieves that  these  evils  are  very  deep  and  large  at  the 
present  time,  and  will  be  most  difficult  to  cure  or 
even  greatly  to  abate  under  existing  conditions 
such  as  those  with  which  the  individual  teacher  can 
not  readily  cope.  But  whether  his  belief  and  feel- 
ings of  foreboding  connected  with  it  are  justified 
or  not,  it  can  scarcely  fail  to  come  true  that  any 


PREFACE  V 

earnest  and  fairly  intelligent  appeal  for  added 
attention  to  the  personal  elements  and  the  moral 
forces  and  ideals  involved  in  the  very  process  of 
education  will  meet  with  response,  equally  earnest 
and  intelligent,  from  numbers  of  the  teachers  in 
our  day  and  land.  And  if  even  a  few  of  those 
belonging  to  the  class  of  workmen,  to  whom  the 
author  has  been  proud  and  glad  to  belong,  are 
helped  in  any  way  by  his  words,  he  will  be  much 
more  than  amply  rewarded. 

In  bringing  these  thoughts  before  those  inter- 
ested in  education  in  this  country,  the  form  of 
spoken  lectures  has  been  preserved  as  best  adapted 
for  the  familiar  style  in  which  they  were  originally 
presented.  But,  of  course,  in  preparing  them 
for  an  audience  in  the  United  States,  not  only 
much  of  the  details,  and  of  the  illustrative  mate- 
rial, but  no  inconsiderable  part  of  more  important 
formal  matters,  has  been  changed. 

George  Trumbull  Ladd. 

New  Haven,  June,  1911. 


CONTENTS 

Lecture  pages 

I.    Introductory     3—  24 

Part  I. 

THE  rUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHEE 

11.    The  Function  of  the  Teacher:  As  a 

Species  of  Intercourse  between  Persons    27—  45 

III.  The  Function  of  the  Teacher:  as  Stimu- 

lating  Interest    46—  67 

IV.  The   Function   of   the   Teacher:    As   Im- 

parting Knowledge    68—  89 

V.     The  Function  of  the  Teacher :  As  Training 

Faculty    90—111 

VI.     The  Function  of  the  Teacher :  As  Forming 

Character 112-135 

Part  II 

THE  EQUIPMENT  OF  THE  TEACHER 

VII.     The  Equipment  of  the  Teacher:  As  Self- 

Cultivation 139—158 

VIII.    The  Equipment  of  the  Teacher :  As  Growth 

in    Knowledge    159—179 

IX.     The  Equipment  of  the  Teacher:  As  Right 

Use  of  Method 180—200 

Part  III 

THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER 

X.     The  Chief   Ideals   of  the   Teacher:    His 

Pupils '  Welfare 203—222 

XL     The   Chief   Ideals    of   the   Teacher:    The 

Cause  of  Science 223—243 

XII.    The  Chief  Ideals  of  the  Teacher:  The  Pub- 
lic Welfare  244—264 

VII 


CONTENTS 


Paet  IV 


THE  TEACHEE'S  EELATION  TO  SOCIETY  AND 
THE  STATE 

XIII.  The  Development  of  Society:  Dependent 

on  Education 267—287 

XIV.  The  National  Stability  and  Progress:  De- 

pendent on  Education 288—308 

XV.    The  Teacher's  Practical  Philosophy:  Sum- 
mary and  Conclusion 309—331 


THE  TEACHER'S 
PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 


LECTURE  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

Fellow  Teachers: 

Before  we  begin  our  study  of  the  particular 
topics,  to  which  I  shall  invite  your  attention  in 
this  course  of  lectures,  it  seems  desirable  that  we 
should  form  a  clear  conception  of  the  general  sub- 
ject to  be  considered,  and  of  the  point  of  view  from 
which  its  consideration  will  take  place.  In  a  word, 
we  aim  to  introduce  ourselves  to  a  certain  group  of 
problems,  on  acquaintance  with  which  our  real 
success  as  teachers  is  most  intimately  dependent. 
And  here  I  must  ask  your  indulgence  if  much 
which  I  have  to  say  in  this  first  lecture  seems 
somewhat  remote  from  the  experiences  of  our  daily 
life  of  routine  practise.  To  put  to  their  best  use 
the  principles  which  underlie  our  high  office,— its 
functions,  its  preparation,  its  ideals, — it  is  neither 
necessary,  nor  desirable,  that  we  should  keep  these 
principles  constantly  before  our  minds;  it  is  at 
least  desirable  and  even  necessary,  however,  that 
we  should  know  what  these  principles  are.  We  can 
then  refer  to  them,  when  we  doubt  or  debate, 
whether  with  ourselves  or  with  one  another,  about 
their  application  to  the  concrete  and  definite,  but 

8 


4        TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

often  very  puzzling  questions  that  arise  in  the 
midst  of  this  daily  experience. 

Much  has  been  written  of  late  about  the  science, 
or  philosophy,  of  education.  And  you  can  scarcely 
have  failed  to  notice  that  I  have  ventured  to  an- 
nounce my  subject  as  dealing  with  a  certain  branch 
of  such  philosophy.  I  have,  in  fact,  proposed  to 
speak  of  ''The  Teacher ^s  Practical  Philosophy.'* 
Let  us  then,  first  of  all,  consider  what  can  be  meant 
by  a  so-called  philosophy  of  education.  For  it  is 
with  education  that  the  teacher  has  to  do  in  a  pro- 
fessional way.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  un- 
couth word  "educationalist,"  has  of  late  been  em- 
ployed to  designate  those  who  for  some  reason— it 
may  be  good,  it  may  be  bad— have  been  supposed 
to  be  preeminent  in  matters  of  education.  For 
myself,  I  much  prefer  the  old-fashioned  word 
teacher;  I  desire  no  higher  honor  than  to  be  called 
by  this  title. 

To  get  some  clear  conception  of  the  sonorous 
phrase,  "philosophy  of  education,"  it  is  necessary 
to  understand  the  use  here  made  of  each  of  the  two 
words  out  of  which  the  phrase  itself  is  compounded. 
To  give  a  most  general,  and  therefore  loose  defini- 
tion: Education  is  the  development  of  the  active 
powers,  or  so-called  faculties,  of  human  nature,  so  as 
to  fit  them  the  better  for  the  performance  of  their 
functions  in  all  the  varying  relations  sustained 
toward   their   physical   environment    and   toward 


INTRODUCTORY  6 

society.  In  the  sense  in  which  I  shall  employ  the 
word,  only  man,  and  not  the  lower  animals,  can  be 
educated.  Training  is  the  more  appropriate  term 
for  the  lower  animals.  And  we  may  stick  by  this 
important  distinction,  whatever  views  we  feel  in- 
clined to  espouse  with  respect  to  the  very  difficult 
problem:  How  far  do  the  most  highly,  so-called 
''educated"  animals,  such  as  certain  dogs  or  man- 
like apes,  really  have,  or  develop,  powers  closely 
resembling  the  higher  faculties  of  man  ? 

From  this  most  general  conception  it  follows  as  a 
matter  of  course,  in  the  first  place,  that  in  man's 
case  all  education  is  a  species  of  conduct.  But 
conduct  is  distinguished  from  mere  action  in  sev- 
eral highly  important  ways.  For  one  thing :  conduct 
involves  a  more  intelligent  apprehension  and  mas- 
tery of  the  means  available  for  attaining  any  de- 
sired end.  It  also  involves  a  more  intelligent  and 
comprehensive  conception  of  the  end  which  is  de- 
sired. But  above  all,  it  suggests  a  larger  self- 
control,  or  self-chosen  and  self-directed  use  of 
select  means  toward  reaching  the  desired  end.  It 
would  take  me  much  too  far  astray  into  some  of 
the  most  obscure  and  difficult  fields  of  the  psychol- 
ogy implicated  in  the  discussion,  if  I  were  to  try  to 
show  you  how  some  degree  of  the  ability  to  form 
abstract  conceptions  of  Time,  Space,  Self,  and  a 
certain  emotional  capacity  for  moral,  artistic,  and 
religious  ideals,  is  evolved  in  the  capacity  of  human 


6        TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

nature  for  being  educated,— in  even  this  loosest 
and  most  general  meaning  of  the  word.  But  all 
this  will  become  more  evident,  by  the  easier  way  of 
illustration,  as  the  course  of  lectures  moves  forward 
over  the  field  of  the  different  topics  it  is  intended 
to  examine. 

Education  is  also,  and  of  necessity,  a  develop- 
ment. Man,  whether  considered  as  an  individual  or 
as  society,— collective  man,— can  not  be  educated 
all  at  once.  And  here  we  come  upon  a  withering 
rebuke  to  all  attempts  at  cramming,  or  rushing, 
or  scamping,  or  over-hurrying  the  process.  In 
education,  you  can  not  get  around  *'01d  Father 
Time.''  If  you  try  it,  his  sickle  is  so  long  and 
sharp,  that  he  will  either  drive  you  back  or  cut 
you  down.  Education  is,  indeed,  a  development: 
It  is,  therefore,  a  process  which  takes  time,  and  can 
be  accomplished  only  by  taking  time.  You  can, 
indeed,  shorten  the  time  by  cutting  out  the  waste 
of  time;  but  you  can  not  secure  thoroughness  and 
reality,  and  eliminate  time. 

From  the  foregoing  two  conceptions,  another  fol- 
lows: Education  always  implies  a  complicated  and 
variable  system  of  actions  and  reactions.  Even 
when  we— not  improperly— speak  of  the  physical 
environment,  or  so-called  Nature,  as  an  important 
educative  influence,  we  imply  a  sort  of  reciprocal 
activity  between  this  physical  environment  and 
the  conscious  soul  of  man.     If  man  were  not  a 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

true  ''child  of  nature,"  and  if  nature  were  not  in 
some  respects  akin  to  man,  or  self -like,  in  its  rela- 
tions to  man,  then  nature  could  not  teach  man; 
then  man  could  not  be  educated  by  nature.  And, 
of  course,  in  all  those  forms  of  social  influence 
which  have  an  educative  value,  as  all  of  them 
indeed  do,  there  is  no  doubt  that  education  is  a 
species  of  conduct. 

But  now,  what  follows  from  all  this  view  of  the 
essential  nature  of  education,  as  shown  by  the  most 
general  conception  attached  to  the  word,  is  nothing 
less  than  the  exceedingly  important  conclusion  that 
education  is  essentially  a  moral  affair,  in  the  larger 
and  grander  meaning  of  the  word  "moral."  For 
conduct  is  the  sphere  of  morals,— whether  it  be 
theory  or  practise.  Conduct,  and  the  development 
of  character  through  the  rational  and  wise  direction 
of  conduct,  is  the  very  essence  of  morality. 

If  all  this  seems  to  you  rather  vague  and  indefin- 
ite, let  us  now  address  ourselves  to  the  attempt  at  a 
more  restricted  and  definite  conception  of  educa- 
tion, as  its  process  concerns  the  professional  work 
of  the  teacher.  In  the  sense  in  which  we  have  thus 
far  used  the  word,  education,  even  in  youth,  is  by 
no  means  confined  to  the  school  or  to  the  teacher's 
work.  The  home-life,  the  particular  occupation, — 
trade,  business,  profession,  art,— more  definitely, 
as  well  as  the  potent,  but  silent  and  often  concealed, 
influences  of  the  physical  and  social  environment, 


8        TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

are  all  of  educative  value.  Indeed,  through  them, 
rather  than  through  the  school  life,  the  multitudes 
must  always,  perhaps,  receive  most  of  their  educa- 
tion. But  we  are  to  consider  those  influences  which 
the  teacher— and  I  may  say,  the  professional  teacher 
—should  recognize  and  employ  intelligently,  in  or- 
der to  reinforce  and  enlarge  those  influences  for 
good  that  come  from  this  physical  and  social  en- 
vironment. 

In  his  professional  work,  the  teacher,  as  such, 
has  certain  very  important  advantages  which  dis- 
tinguish his  position  above  all  others,  in  its  rela- 
tions to  this  difficult  task.  Let  me  mention  some 
of  the  most  familiar  of  these  advantages.  And, 
first,  the  work  of  education  is  obligatory  in  the 
teacher's  case.  This  work  is  precisely  that  for 
which  the  teacher  is  appointed,  and  for  which  the 
pupil  is  sent  to  school.  The  teacher  is,  presumably, 
but  not  always  wisely  and  effectively,  * '  backed  up ' ' 
by,  and  is  accountable  to,  the  same  authority  which 
has  placed  upon  him  the  responsibility  of  educa- 
tion. Now  I  know  that  we  are  accustomed  to  dream 
enticing  dreams  of  how  much  happier  we  should  be, 
and  of  how  much  more  effective  even,  if  only  we 
were  not  obliged  to  do  just  about  such  a  kind  and 
quantity  of  teacher's  work.  I  suppose  that  the 
teacher  who  should  earn— if  such  an  one  there  could 
ever  be— or  who  should  inherit  an  independent 
fortune,  and  so  would  be  less  under  the  necessity  of 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

incurring  close-fitting  responsibilities,  would  be 
looked  upon  as  an  object  of  envy.  Professors,  who 
have  become  emeritus  and  have  been  placed  on  a 
Carnegie  foundation,  are  supposed  to  have  attained 
the  conditions  for  a  perfectly  happy  life,  here  be- 
low, if  not  hereafter.  They  no  longer  have  to  teach; 
they  are  no  longer  under  obligation  to  a  presidential 
boss,  or  to  a  remote  and  not  well-informed  board 
of  trustees  or  a  corporation.  But  I  assure  you,  my 
friends,  that  this  in  most  cases  is  only  because  the 
person  concerned  does  not  love  to  teach,  or  is  con- 
sciously unfit  in  body  or  mind  to  continue  the  work 
of  teaching.  A  large  measure  of  the  firm  and  close- 
fitting  sense  of  obligation— if  only  we  could  respect 
its  source— conduces,  in  general,  to  the  happiness 
as  well  as  to  the  efficiency  of  the  teacher. 

Other  important  advantages  come  to  the  profes- 
sional teacher  in  the  work  of  education,  from  the 
fact  that  he  has  been  especially  trained  for  just  this 
work.  To  be  sure,  there  still  lingers  in  many  parts 
of  this  country,  which  is  apt  to  boast  so  inordinately 
of  the  special  attention  which  it  gives  to  education, 
the  practise  of  committing  the  work  of  education 
to  persons  who  have  had  little  or  no  professional 
training.  But  in  the  country  at  large,  the  demand 
for  such  training  is  rising ;  and  we  may  hope  that 
the  time  is  not  eternally  distant  when  an  untrained 
person  will  be  no  more  acceptable  in  the  profession 


10      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

of  teaching  than  in  the  profession  of  medicine,  law, 
or  even  of  the  ministry. 

Again,  the  teacher  has  the  important  advantage 
of  having  his  subjects  committed  to  him  at,  and 
during,  the  formative  period  of  their  lives.  The 
immaturity,  the  crudeness,  and  rank  foolishness  of 
one's  pupils  is  often  a  severe  trial  to  the  teacher 
of  serious  purpose.  It  is  also,  not  infrequently,  a 
bitter  disappointment  that  he  can  not  hurry  these 
youth  through  the  raw  and  green  age  of  develop- 
ment so  fast  as  seems  desirable.  But  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  there  is  another  side,  and  a  side  of 
hope  to  all  this.  Crudeness  and  foolishness  are 
symptoms  of  the  age  in  which  the  process  of  edu- 
cation is  most  appropriate,  and  its  successful  prog- 
ress most  reasonable  to  expect.  The  age  of  im- 
maturity is  the  educable  age.  And  just  as  the 
triumph  of  any  artistic  effort  depends,  not  solely 
on  the  artist's  ideal  or  the  artist's  skill,  but  also 
on  the  moldableness  of  the  material,  in  which,  by 
his  skill,  he  must  see  his  ideals  more  or  less  fully 
idealized,  so  it  is  preeminently  with  the  art  of  the 
so-called  ' '  educator. '  * 

Another  advantage  which  is  really  great,  but 
which  belongs  to  our  present  system  of  education 
far  less  than  it  should,  and  to  gain  more  of  which 
it  would,  in  my  judgment,  be  well  worth  while  to 
sacrifice  a  number  of  less  important  considerations, 
is  this:  The  teacher's  work  is,  for  considerable  por- 


INTRODUCTORY  11 

tions  of  one  or  more  years  at  least,  regular  and 
unintermitting.  He  can  thus  reiterate,  habitualize 
— *'rub  in,"  so  to  say — the  truths  and  practises,  of 
which  he  aims  to  make  the  pupil  something  of  a 
master.  In  view  of  the  immense  loss  of  effective 
influence  which  comes  from  parting  with  this  ad- 
vantage, I  should  favor  some  rearrangement  of 
our  public-school  system,  especially  in  the  large 
schools  of  our  cities,  which  should,  so  far  as  possi- 
ble, keep  the  same  pupils  under  the  same  teachers 
for  several  years  in  succession.  As  it  is  now,  too 
much  of  the  work  of  education  resembles  the  work 
of  legislation;  and  this— to  borrow  a  figure  of 
speech  from  Milton— consists  in  large  measure  of 
*' hatching  lies  with  the  heat  of  legislation,"  and 
then  killing  off  the  brood  hatched  by  the  last 
legislature. 

And,  finally,  the  teacher,  if  he  is  successful,  may 
secure  some  of  those  most  important  domestic  and 
social  auxiliaries  of  the  emotional  kind,  such  as 
respect,  confidence,  and  even  tender  affection.  It 
was  a  saying  of  Confucius,  which  remains  much 
more  in  force  in  the  Orient  than  with  us,  and  of 
which  one  of  my  Japanese  pupils  on  our  final  part- 
ing reminded  me,  that  "the  relations  of  reverence 
and  love  betwen  the  pupil  and  his  teacher  stand 
next  to  those  of  the  son  to  his  father." 

Such,  then,  is  education  as  it  is  committed  to  the 
profession  of  the  teacher ;  and  such  are  some  of  the 


12      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

advantages  which  the  skilful  and  devoted  teacher 
h£is  at  command,  if  he  desires  to  employ  them.  This 
is  enough  to  define,  at  least  in  a  preliminary  way, 
the  subject-matter  of  this  course  of  lectures.  But 
now,  a  few  words  as  to  the  method  of  the  proposed 
treatment,  and  as  to  the  point  of  view  which  it  is 
proposed  to  assume  in  the  effort  to  carry  through 
successfully  this  method.  Both  the  method  and 
the  point  of  view  have  been  summarized  in  the 
phrase,  ** Practical  Philosophy.'' 

What  now  is  Philosophy?  and  what  can  be 
meant,  that  is  profitable,  by  the  proposal  to  treat 
of  education  from  the  philosophical  point  of  view? 
In  this  country,  in  these  days,  the  very  word  has 
become  a  term  to  excite  the  suspicion  of  approach- 
ing dull  weather,  with  dark  clouds  overhanging 
and  thick  mist  around;  or  else  to  awaken  and 
strengthen  concealed  feelings  of  aversion  and  even 
scorn.  We  are  so  very  ** practical"  as  a  nation;  and 
if  we  will  listen  at  all  to  the  philosophic  voice,  it 
must  speak  in  terms  of  so-called  **  Pragmatism, ' ' 
of  the  very  latest  type.  But,  my  friends,  we  fail  to 
recognize  that,  for  lack  of  a  knowledge  of  princi- 
ples, we  have,  in  business,  politics,  social  better- 
ment, diplomacy,  and  education,  fallen  in  not  a  few 
respects  behind  the  more  advanced  nations  of  the 
civilized  world.  In  answer  to  the  question  now 
before  us,  I  am  not  proposing  to  entertain  you  with 
any  occult  doctrines,  or  hidden  cult,  or  newly  dis- 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

covered  mysteries.  The  philosophy  of  education 
need  not  be  understood  as  dealing  with  any  thing 
of  this  sort.  It  is  just  an  attempt  at  setting  forth, 
in  the  most  familiar  manner,  certain  fundamental 
principles  which  underlie,  and  which  should  con- 
sciously and  intelligently  underlie,  all  the  teacher 's 
profesional  work  and  professional  life.  And  since 
this  work  is  more  of  an  art  than  of  a  science,  and 
the  really  successful  teacher  deserves  to  rank  with 
a  great  artist  rather  than  with  a  great  scientfic 
discoverer,  you  will  please  consider  what  I  say  to 
you  as  matters  of  opinion  on  which  you  are  your- 
selves to  exercise  your  own  reflective  judgment, 
rather  than  as  demonstrations  of  indubitable  truths. 
In  brief,  then,  the  nature  of  a  so-called  philos- 
ophy of  education  may  be  the  better  understood, 
if  we  will  reflect  upon  the  meaning  of  the  following 
statements.  And,  first,  philosophy  aims  at  the  dis- 
covery of  the  most  general  principles  appertaining 
to  the  subject  about  which  it  is  proposed  to  philos- 
ophize. Science,  too,  aims  at  the  discovery  of  gen- 
eral principles,  and  to  these  principles  it  is  accus- 
tomed to  give  the  name  of  laws.  Science  aims  in 
this  way  to  unify  the  phenomena.  But  as  Mr. 
Spencer  said,  years  ago,  philosophy  aims  at  a  still 
higher  kind  of  unity.  In  reaching  out  for  this 
higher  kind  of  unity,  philosophy  is  apt  to  employ 
methods  which  I  have  elsewhere  defined  as  the 
methods  of  reflective  analysis  and  speculative  syn- 


14      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

thesis.  But  not  to  make  any  mystery  of  this,  let 
me  only  say  that,  when  it  is  proposed  to  treat  any 
subject  in  education  philosophically,  you  are  all 
invited  to  think  that  subject  as  nearly  through  as 
you  possibly  can— to  think  it  out  to  the  end;  and 
then  to  put  together  in  the  form  of  a  judgment 
for  a  guide  in  future  practise,  what  you  have  thus 
thought  through.  ' '  Through-ness, "  or  thorough- 
ness, is  thus  essential  to  the  method  of  philosophy. 

But  do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that  a  philos- 
ophy of  any  one  of  the  groups  of  problems  which 
puzzle  and  worry  the  professional  teacher  can  be 
based  on  airy  nothings,  on  mere  imaginings  or 
vague  sentiments— however  worthy  and  noble  in 
themselves  these  imaginings  and  sentiments  may 
seem.  All  sound  and  good  philosophy  must  be  based 
on  experience— either  of  one's  own  or,  what  is  bet- 
ter oftentimes,  as  embodied  in  some  judgment  that 
makes  a  valid  claim  to  at  least  a  sort  of  scientific 
quality. 

And  here  we  are  to  remind  ourselves  that  there 
are  certain  forms  of  study  which,  whether  they  can 
be  called  *' sciences,"  or  not,  in  the  stricter  mean- 
ing of  that  word,  embody  the  kind  of  experience 
on  which  the  philosophy  of  any  particular  group  of 
problems  in  education  must  be  based.  I  do  not 
suffer  myself  to  speak  of  a  science  of  pedagogy. 
Indeed,  the  larger  amount  of  what  is  current  under 
this  term  seems  to  me  distressingly  shallow;  and 


INTRODUCTORY  16 

no  little  of  it  I  believe  to  be  positively  mischievous. 
But  the  study  of  psychology,  in  the  broadest  mean- 
ing of  that  term,  as  the  science  of  human  mental 
life,  especially  in  the  genetic  way;  the  study  of 
the  history  of  education,  as  it  sets  forth  the  chang- 
ing and  developing  convictions  and  practises  of  the 
race  touching  the  needs  of  the  educational  process 
and  the  best  means  of  satisfying  them ;  the  study  of 
the  lives  and  experiments,  and  of  the  results  of  the 
experiments,  of  the  few  men  and  women  whose 
work  has  been  epoch-making  in  education;  the 
study,  either  by  reading  or  at  first  hand  of  the 
social  and  educational  conditions  and  needs  of  our 
own  land  and  day — all  these  and  other  closely 
allied  studies  constitute  the  basis  of  experience 
on  which  we  must  try  to  place  our  philosophy  of 
education,  if  we  expect  it  to  win  and  keep  the 
confidence  and  respect  of  others,  not  to  say  our 
own  confidence  and  respect. 

But  I  have  announced  my  topic  as  *'The  Teach- 
er ^s  Practical  Philosophy."  I  might  almost 
equally  well  have  used  the  word  "ethical,"  or  the 
word  ''moral"  to  express  my  intention.  For  the 
sphere  of  the  ethical  or  moral  is  the  practical ;  and 
in  the  broadest  and  best  meaning  of  the  words,  the 
teacher's  practical  philosophy  is  the  moral  philos- 
ophy which  deals  with  the  principles  of  conduct 
that  underlie  the  teacher's  work.  Education,  as 
the  professional  teacher  undertakes  it,  is  a  species 


16      TEE  TEACHER' 8  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

of  conduct;  all  conduct  comes  into,  or  rather 
essentially  belongs  within,  the  sphere  of  the  moral ; 
or  what  is  the  same  thing,  of  the  practical.  The 
study  of  education,  as  we  are  proposing  to  pursue 
it,  should  result  in  the  discovery  and  systematic 
treatment  of  those  most  general  principles  of  con- 
duct, which  apply  to  the  particular  relations  in 
which  human  beings  are  placed  for  purposes  of 
education.  More  briefly  and  familiarly  said:  "We 
inquire  into  the  principles  which  should  regulate 
the  professional  conduct  of  the  teacher.  To  avoid, 
as  far  as  possible  under  the  circumstances,  mis- 
understanding on  the  part  of  any  of  my  hearers, 
let  me  repeat:  It  is  principles  rather  than  rules 
which  we  are  to  investigate;  and  these  are  to  be, 
chiefly,  the  principles  which  are  most  fundamental 
and  general,  or  nearly  universal.  It  is  not  my 
purpose,  then,  to  tell  you  just  how  to  teach,  after 
the  somewhat  too  lordly  manner  of  the  master  peda- 
gogue or  so-called  educator.  And  I  am  very  glad 
that  I  am  not  committed  to  this  purpose.  I  should 
very  much  rather  learn  the  art  of  teaching,  if 
that  were  possible,  from  some  of  you.  As  to  those 
general  principles,  however,  with  which  we  all, 
as  teachers,  ought  to  be  familiar,  and  upon  which 
we  ought  constantly  to  endeavor  to  base  our  prac- 
tise, I  feel  much  more  confident  of  my  ability  to 
speak.  They  have  been  the  topics  of  my  thoughts 
and  research,  for  more  than  two-score  years.    And 


INTRODUCTORY  17 

I  shall  not  be  surprised,  if  some  of  you  finish  this 
course  of  instruction  with  me  by  saying:  ''Why! 
we  knew  all  that  before."  In  part,  I  am  hoping 
to  avoid  this  crushing  piece  of  criticism,  and  to 
make  the  lectures  of  more  use  in  the  daily  routine 
of  the  schoolroom,  by  illustrating  and  enforcing 
the  principles,  as  we  go  along  together,  with  much 
more  material  taken  from  concrete  experiences, 
with  which  all  may  not  be  quite  so  familiar,  or  with 
which  they  may  not  have  happened  previously  to 
have  seen  the  principles  connected. 

As  to  the  Divisions  of  the  subject:  I  am  pro- 
posing, for  purposes  of  convenience  and  clearness 
in  our  procedure,  to  discuss  it  under  the  following 
four  heads.  And,  first,  we  shall  raise  this  inquiry : 
How  do  the  principles  which  constitute  the  prac- 
tical philosophy  of  education  underlie,  and  apply 
to,  the  Functions  of  the  teacher?  I  have  already 
intimated  that  teaching  seems  to  me  to  resemble  in 
many  important  respects  a  high-class  form  of  art. 
But  in  all  forms  of  human  artistic  activity,  prin- 
ciples need  to  be,  not  so  much  learned  as  generaliza- 
tions that  may  prove  useful  in  the  discovery  or 
explanation  of  concrete  facts,  as  incorporated  in 
habits  of  action  and  made  ways  of  expressing  the 
ideals  and  motives  that  control  the  spiritual  life. 
In  this  part  of  the  subject,  therefore,  we  shall 
consider  the  workman  at  his  work— what  that  work 
is,  and  how  it  ought  to  be  done  if  it  is  to  adapt 


18      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

itself  to  the  underlying  principles  of  a  practical 
philosophy  of  education.  In  a  word,  we  shall  aim 
to  sketch  in  outline  the  ethical  doctrine  of  the 
forms  of  activity  in  which  the  art  of  teaching  well 
consists. 

In  the  second  division  of  the  subject  we  shall 
consider  the  Equipment  of  the  Teacher.  Here  we 
shall  try  to  show  how  the  same  principles  of  the 
teacher's  practical  philosophy  govern  that  self -cul- 
ture which  fits  one  for  the  most  rational  and  suc- 
cessful exercise  of  these  same  functions,  or  forms 
of  activity.  Like  every  other  kind  of  workman, 
and  even  much  more  than  most  kinds  of  workmen, 
the  professional  teacher  demands  some  special 
equipment  for  his  special  work.  In  attaining  this 
equipment  he  must  himself  be  active.  The  teacher's 
preparation  is  a  species  of  conduct ;  and  it  is,  there- 
fore, a  moral  affair  and  falls  under  the  control  of 
the  principles  of  a  practical,  and  a  practicable, 
philosophy.  Although,  however,  this  self -prepara- 
tion of  the  teacher  is  a  kind  of  work  which  stands, 
often  a  long  distance  before,  and  always  at  the 
threshold,  of  his  active  life,  it  is  also  a  preparation 
which  can  never  be  completely  finished.  The  teach- 
er's  equipment  gives  him  an  everlasting  job.  His 
work  is  never  done.  His  getting  ready  for  this 
work  is  never  quite  complete.  Both  functions  and 
equipment,  therefore,  need  the  ceaseless  control  of 
moral  principles. 


INTRODUCTORY  19 

But,  in  a  way,  presiding  over  both  functions  and 
equipment,  and  constituting  the  third  division  of 
our  subject,  are  the  Ideals  of  the  Teacher.  These 
are  certain  conceptions  which  have  an  emotional 
value,  which  have  also  a  *'puU"  upon  the  will, 
and  which  set  the  aims  of  the  workman  at  an  alti- 
tude appreciably  higher  than  the  facts  and  actu- 
alities of  present  attainment.  Ideals  in  education 
are  preeminently  matters  to  be  dealt  with  in  terms 
of  the  principles  of  a  suitable  moral  philosophy. 
No  heresy  is  more  rank,  indefensible,  and  mischie- 
vous, than  that  which  would  reduce  all  moral 
problems  to  questions  of  mere  fact.  Or,  perhaps, 
it  would  be  better  to  say  that  we  can  not  even 
make  the  attempt  to  deal  with  moral  problems  in 
this  way,  and  deal  honestly  and  thoroughly,  with- 
out coming  upon  this  most  important  fact ;  namely, 
that  the  notions  of  humanity  as  to  what  is  not 
now,  but  which  nevertheless  ought  to  be,  are  them- 
selves facts,  most  plainly  existent  and  of  the  most 
potent  order.  And  without  these  facts,  the  very 
conceptions  of  the  right  and  the  wrong  in  conduct, 
in  the  moral  meaning  of  the  words  ** right"  and 
*' wrong,'*  would  have  no  intelligible  meaning  at 
all.  The  ideals  of  the  teacher,  therefore,  like  all 
other  ideals,  must  be  considered  in  the  light  of  the 
principles  of  a  true  practical  philosophy. 

Finally,  in  the  fourth  division  of  the  subject, 
we  shall  consider  some  of  the  more  important  of 


20      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHT 

the  Relations  which  the  Teacher  sustains  to  the 
Welfare  of  Society  and  to  the  Stability  and  Pros- 
perity of  the  State.  In  this  way  I  hope  to  reach 
something  of  a  result  which  shall  yield  a  broader 
outlook  upon  the  teacher's  field  of  operation;  and 
which  shall  greatly  enhance  our  estimate  of  the  dig- 
nity, importance,  and  practical  efficiency,  when  it 
is  well  done,  of  the  teacher's  work. 

In  closing  this  first  and  introductory  lecture,  I 
wish  to  make  a  few  remarks  upon  the  value  of  the 
study  of  education  from  the  philosophical  point  of 
view,  as  I  have  defined  it;  and,  as  well,  of  its 
results  in  their  possible  application  to  the  daily 
routine  work  of  the  professional  teacher.  Such  a 
study  will  not,  indeed,  furnish  any  rules  of  pro- 
cedure that  are  precise  and  "practical,"  in  the  nar- 
rower and  much-abused,  but  widely  current  use  of 
the  latter  word.  It  will  tell  no  inquirer  just  what 
he  must  do  in  order  to  become  a  truly  successful 
teacher.  It  does  not  even  aim  at  so  high,  so  utterly 
impossible  a  task.  I  have  already  said  more  than 
once,  that  teaching  is  more  like  an  art  than  an 
exact  science.  No  instruction  in  principles,  and 
no  amount  of  learning  rules,  will  ever  make  an 
artist  in  any  one  of  the  several  lines  of  art.  ]\Iy 
experience  has  taught  me  that  here  is  a  point  at 
which  the  would-be  teacher  of  teachers  needs  fre- 
quently to  stop  a  bit,  and  expostulate  and  explain, 
even  at  the  risk  of  seeming  guilty  of  an  unpar- 


INTRODUCTORY  21 

donable  reiteration  of  commonplaces.  For  teach- 
ers, above  all  other  classes  of  learners,  and  just 
because  they  are  more  honest  and  really  desirous 
of  learning  than  any  other  class  of  hearers,  when 
attending  lectures  on  so-called  pedagogy,  quite  uni- 
formly get  out  their  note-books  and  begin  to  listen 
and  take  notes,  just  as  though  they  expected  you 
to  tell  them  some  new  secret  appertaining  to  the 
truth,  precisely  how  the  thing  we  all  find  so  diffi- 
cult, ought  really  to  be  done.  But,  my  friends,  I 
shall  make  no  attempt  at  this;  although  I  shall 
hope  by  the  way  to  drop  certain  hints  and  sug- 
gestions which  may  stimulate  and  guide  many  a 
one  of  you  in  experimenting  for  himself,  or  her- 
self, to  find  out  how  in  the  individual  case,  the 
art  of  successful  teaching  may  be,  the  better,  put 
into  actual  practise.  In  making  this  sort  of  at- 
tempt, I  may  reasonably  hope  for  a  partial  suc- 
cess. If  I  were  to  attempt  the  other  task,  I  should 
most  certainly,  miserably  fail. 

A  survey  of  the  principles  of  a  practical  philos- 
ophy for  teachers  may,  however,  yield  one  or  more, 
or  all,  of  the  following  valuable  results.  It  may 
give  a  more  comprehensive  understanding  and  a 
firmer  grasp  of  the  principles  themselves.  I  have 
already  said  that  the  principles  of  a  teacher's  prac- 
tical philosophy  do  not  constitute  a  secret  cult,  nor 
does  the  knowledge  of  them  reveal  a  mystery  *' hid- 
den from  the  foundation  of  the  world,*'  until  now. 


22      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

I  am  not  posing  as  the  prophet  of  a  new  revelation. 
But  just  because  these  principles  are  so  universal, 
they  are  profound  in  a  peculiar  way ;  and  just  be- 
cause they  seem  so  commonplace  they  are  peculiarly 
liable  to  become  covered  up  with  less  important 
material  and  either  overlooked  or  quite  neglected. 
Just  as  in  politics  and  business  and  religion,  it  is 
the  more  general  principles  of  conduct,  touching 
honor,  fidelity,  justice,  truthfulness,  unselfishness, 
which  are  most  apt  to  be  little  regarded,  imper- 
fectly recognized,  and  faultily  applied,  so  it  is 
with  the  moral  principles  which  should  control  the 
functions,  the  equipment,  and  the  ideals,  of  the 
professional  teacher.  And  when  some  one,  like  the 
late  President  Cleveland,  or  other  advocate  of  im- 
proved polities— or,  better  still,  the  world's  great 
teachers  and  reformers  of  morals  and  religion — 
announces  and  reiterates  these  principles,  they  are 
received  with  a  sort  of  shock  of  surprise  as  tho  they 
were  the  newly  acquired  results  of  some  great  dis- 
covery. But  they  are,  in  fact,  principles  which 
should  always  be  kept  in,  if  not  before,  the  mind, 
and  which  admit  of  unlimited  study,  because  they 
are  designed  for  universal  application.  Such  study 
is  of  the  very  highest  practical  value. 

The  same  study  should  also  give  to  all  who  under- 
take it  in  seriousness,  a  higher  ideal  of  the  stand- 
ard of  personal  worth  and  personal  culture,  which 
is  required  of  the  teacher  in  order  to  the  best  equip- 


INTRODUCTORY  28 

ment  and  adaptation  to  his  work  of  education.  If 
the  ideal  is  not  set  so  high  as  to  be  a  perpetual 
source  of  discouragement,  and  if  its  conception  is 
tempered  and  supplemented  by  a  large  amount  of 
good  sense  and  a  growing  experience  with  the  in- 
evitable conditions  which  limit,  while  they  support, 
all  forms  of  human  endeavor,  then  the  clarified  and 
high  ideal  attained  in  this  way,  is  a  most  valuable 
asset  for  the  practising  teacher. 

Under  the  stimulus  of  such  an  ideal,  and  by  the 
guidance  of  a  growing  comprehension  of  the  afore- 
said principles,  it  is  scarcely  -avoidable  that  there 
should  be  an  awakening  of  the  mind,  a  fixing  of  the 
will,  a  discipline  and  an  habitual  exercise  of  the 
powers  of  body  and  soul,  which  will  result  in  a 
progressive  and  approximate  realization  of  the 
teacher's  ideals.  Or,  if  this  does  not  seem  to  be  so 
to  the  individual  Self,  it  will  be  because  the  ideals 
have  themselves  risen  faster  than  the  most  ardent 
and  aspiring  pace  in  the  endeavor  to  overtake  them. 
Other  less  exacting  and  fairer  judges  than  the  per- 
son himself,  are  quite  sure,  in  the  long  run,  to  note 
something  of  this  realization. 

And  last  of  all— an  effect  which  must  always 
seem  more  distant  and  more  dim,  on  account  of  the 
ceaseless  change  and  widening  of  the  horizon,  and 
the  multiplicity  and  powerful  influence  of  new  and 
unexpected  obstacles  which  are  liable  to  be  inter- 
posed— there  will  be  some  increase  of  deeply-seated 


24      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

hope  and  quiet  confidence  in  those  larger  and  more 
distantly  future,  political  and  social  results  which 
can  be  secured  only  for  a  well-educated  community 
of  human  beings.  For  if  we  add,  as  we  must, 
morals  and  religion  to  the  educative  forces  which 
determine  the  destiny  of  the  nation  and  the  real  and 
lasting  progress  of  social  institutions,  we  can  not 
escape  the  conclusion,  that  on  the  quality  of  the 
common  education,  these  great  interests  chiefly 
depend.  And  to  the  teachers  in  the  public  schools, 
more  than  to  any  other  class,  these  interests  are 
committed  at  the  present  time. 


Part  I 
THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER 


tt 


LECTURE  II 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER: 

AS   A  SPECIES   OF  INTERCOURSE   BETWEEN 

PERSONS 

In  the  last  lecture  I  promised  to  consider,  as  the 
first  topic  requiring  treatment  in  a  practical  philos- 
ophy of  education,  the  functions,  or  forms  of  the 
activity,  of  the  professional  teacher.  In  defining 
the  point  of  view  adopted  and  maintained  by  such 
an  attempt  at  'a  philosophy,  I  also  made  it  clear 
that  all  the  processes  of  education,  and  especially 
the  part  which  the  teacher  of  the  young  has  in  it, 
are  a  species  of  conduct.  And,  indeed,  it  is  human 
conduct  which  constitutes  the  peculiar  sphere  of  all 
so-called  *' practical  philosophy.^*  To  say  this, 
however,  is  almost  the  same  thing  as  saying  that  all 
teaching  is  a  personal  affair,  is  a  species  of  inter- 
course between  persons.  The  moral  principles 
which  regulate  the  intercourse  of  persons  must, 
therefore,  be  identical  with  those  which  establish 
rules  for  the  practical  activities  or  functions,  of 
the  professional  teacher. 

Let  me  then,  first  of  all,  explain  and  expand  this 
thought  that  the  work  of  the  teacher  is  essentially  a 
personal  affair. 

27 


28      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

The  various  actions  and  re-actions  which  go  to 
make  up  our  world  of  movement  and  change,  as 
respects  the  nature  of  the  beings  between  which 
they  take  place,  may  be  roughly  divided  into  three 
classes.  Some  actions  and  re-actions,  some  changes, 
are  always  taking  place  between  things ;  or  between 
animals  and  men  on  the  one  hand,  and  things  on 
the  other  hand.  If  what  takes  place  is  merely  a 
question  of  the  changed  relations  of  things,  of  what 
things  are  doing  to  each  other,  or  suffering  from 
each  other,  and  no  personal  interests  are  involved, 
we  do  not  look  upon  the  transaction  as  a  matter  of 
moral  concernment.  I  say,  we  do  not  look  upon 
such  happenings  as  moral  affairs.  The  same  thing 
is  not  quite  true  of  savage,  or  so-called  primitive 
men.  And  the  reason  why  it  is  not  true  is  sugges- 
tive as  illustrating  our  present  contention.  For  the 
reason  is  that  these  men  regard  things,  and  espe- 
cially things  that  seem  to  be  alive,  as  somehow  en- 
dowed with  a  kind  of  personal  life;  or,  at  least, 
as  the  cherished  seats  of  personal  beings.  As  in- 
fluenced by  this  way  of  looking  at  things,  much 
of  human  artistic  and  religious  development  has 
taken  place.  Of  course,  the  same  influence  has 
always  been  the  source  of  the  widely  prevalent  and 
highly  variegated  forms  of  nature- worship. 

When  we  come  to  consider  the  rules  which  regu- 
late the  intercourse  between  things  on  the  one  hand, 
and  animals  and  men  on  the  other,  the  clearer  con- 


TEE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  29 

ception  of  a  certain  moral  source  for  these  rules 
begins  to  appear.  At  the  same  time,  we  think,  and 
men  have  always  thought,  that  it  is  right  for  the 
latter  to  use  the  former,  as  tho  mere  things  have 
no  rights  which  men  and  animals  are  bound  to  re- 
spect. To  be  sure,  both  savage  and  cultured  men 
may,  and  should,  so  respect  the  beauty  and  the 
divinity  which  are  embodied  even  in  things,  as  not 
to  abuse  them.  This,  too,  is  because  we  partially 
personify  things,  and  thus  invest  them  with  per- 
sonal qualities  which  we  feel  "bound  to  respect." 
Our  intercourse  with  them,  however,  is  not,  strictly 
considered,  a  personal  affair;  and  we  should  not 
think  of  trying  to  teach  them  to  go  right.  We  only 
speak  seriously  of  training  things. 

We  come  much  nearer  to  the  point  of  view  of  our 
proposed  practical  philosophy,  when  we  consider 
the  rules  which  it  is  thought  ought  to  regulate  the 
actions  and  reactions  and  the  changes  which  go  on 
in  the  relations  among  the  animals;  and  between 
all  the  animals  and  man.  We  often  look  with  a  sort 
of  pain  and  disgust  on  the  ruthless  and  cruel  way 
in  which  different  species  of  animals,  and  different 
members  of  the  same  species,  treat  one  another ;  and 
we  wonder  how  a  perfectly  good  God  could  have 
made  a  world  which  seems  to  have  its  very  founda- 
tions laid  in  so  much  of  suffering  and  loss  to  animal 
life.  But  we  are  somewhat  relieved  when  the  biolo- 
gists point  out  that,  only  in  some  such  way  as  this, 


30      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

SO  far  as  human  science  is  able  to  divine,  could 
we  have  any  world  of  swarming  and  varied  life; 
and  we  are  further  comforted  when  it  is  shown  that 
all  these  species  are  probably  useful  and  valuable, 
but  only  in  their  day  and  generation,  and  if  they 
prevent  one  another  from  usurping  the  whole  earth. 
If  in  our  mistaken  zeal  we  join  the  local  anti-vivi- 
section society,  and  attend  one  of  its  meetings,  hav- 
ing eaten  a  hearty  meal  of  pork  or  beef -steak,  and 
wearing  a  coat  with  a  fur  collar  or  a  bonnet  with 
one  or  two  slaughtered  birds  to  crown  its  beauty, 
we  may  reasonably  be  influenced,  and  I  hope  we 
should  be  influenced  in  our  vote  upon  the  resolu- 
tions proposed,  by  the  undoubted  truth  that,  but  for 
a  large  and,  probably,  an  increasing  amount  of  the 
use  in  this  way,  of  our  brethren,  the  lower  animals, 
we  could  never  conquer,  or  even  much  ameliorate, 
most  of  the  diseases  which  sorely  afflict  the  human 
race.  But,  leaving  this  on  one  side,  I  wish  to 
make  it  perfectly  plain  that  when  we  talk  about  the 
** rights*'  of  animals,  or  about  our  ** duties'*  to  the 
animals,  we  personify  them.  It  is  only  by  personi- 
fying them  that  we  can  consider  our  intercourse 
with  them  as  a  personal  affair.  As  I  have  already 
said:  We  can  not  properly  speak  of  teaching, 
rather  than  training,  the  animals,  in  the  full  sense 
in  which  the  former  word  applies  to  human  beings. 
Now,  on  the  contrary,  as  to  intercourse  between 
human  beings,  there  is  no  principle  of  a  moral  phi- 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  31 

losophy  more  fundamental  and  universal  than  this : 
Persons  can  never  properly  be  treated  as  mere 
things,  or  as  nothing  more  than  sensitive,  living 
animals.  All  forms  of  intercourse  between  men  are 
to  be  characterized  as  coming  under  a  different 
and  higher  set  of  considerations  than  those  which 
regulate  the  intercourse  of  men  with  things  or  with 
the  lower  animals. 

Now,  teaching  is  obviously  and  expressly  a  per- 
sonal affair.  It  can  never  for  an  instant,  then, 
slip  out  from  under  the  jurisdiction  of  those  prin- 
ciples which  control  the  rights  and  duties  of  per- 
sons. The  teacher's  functions,  when  considered  in 
this  way,  all  become  defined  in  terms  of  a  particular 
kind  of  personal  intercourse.  The  preparation  for 
the  teacher's  office,  essentially  considered,  becomes 
a  development  of  a  personality  adapted  for  the  suc- 
cessful discharge  of  those  functions.  The  teacher's 
ideals  become  ideals  of  personal  character.  The 
more  extensive  social  and  political  results  which  are 
achieved  through  the  discharge  of  these  functions 
concern  the  improvement  of  the  collective  action 
and  intercourse  of  personal  beings,  as  united  in 
various  social  ways  and  in  the  state. 

Perhaps,  then,  the  most  important  and  illumi- 
nating exhortation  of  which  we  can  frequently 
avail  ourselves  as  teachers,  might  be  stated  in  some 
such  general  way  as  the  following:  "Always  re- 
member that  you  are  a  person,  and  that  you  are 


32      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

dealing  with  persons/*  This  implies  that  yon  have 
both  rights  and  duties  and  that  your  pupils  have, 
each  one,  both  rights  and  duties. 

This  rather  vague,  general  statement  of  the 
nature  of  the  teacher  *s  function  as  a  kind  of  per- 
sonal intercourse,  may  now  be  made  more  definite 
and  close-fitting  to  our  peculiar  sort  of  work,  by 
bringing  before  our  minds  certain  particular  con- 
siderations. And,  first,  there  is  this  thought  to  be 
borne  in  mind:  In  its  most  definite  and  culminat- 
ing form,  teaching  involves  a  special  relation,  for 
the  time  being,  between  two  personal  beings.  There 
is  the  teacher,  one  person;  and  there  is  the  pupil, 
another  person ;  and,  for  the  moment,  they  two  are 
the  only  persons  to  be  considered.  With  our  mod- 
ern fashions,  which  are  in  large  measure  born  of 
necessity,  and  the  necessity  of  which  seems  to  be  an 
inseparable  accompaniment  of  public  education, 
there  is  much  lecturing  and  class-teaching,  which 
can  not  possibly  realize  this  ideal.  The  stimulus  of 
the  others  in  the  class,  and  to  a  less  degree  of  the 
rest  of  the  audience  in  the  lecture-room,  are  not 
without  their  advantages.  But,  after  all,  the  ideal 
form  of  the  teacher's  activity  is  the  personal  inter- 
course of  one  mind  with  one  other  mind.  This 
individual  work  is  the  supreme  exercise  of  the 
teacher's  function.  In  that  supreme  exercise,  there 
is  only  one  teacher  and  one  pupil.  And  I  am  sure 
that  every  true-hearted  teacher  desires,  and  every 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER"  33 

specially  successful  teacher  somehow  secures,  as 
much  as  is  possible  under  the  hard  circumstances 
of  modern  public  education,  of  this  individual 
** hand-picking"  kind  of  work. 

The  truly  hopeful  thing  about  the  particularity 
of  the  teacher's  personal  intercourse  with  his  pupils 
is  the  fact  that,  in  the  order  of  possible  efficiency 
and  resultfulness,  the  relation  of  teacher  and  pupil 
is  excelled  by  only  one  other— namely,  the  relation 
of  parent  and  child.  Indeed,  when  the  home-life  is 
so  disturbed  and,  I  fear,  degenerate,  as  much  of  the 
home-life  in  this  country  has  come  to  be,  the  teacher 
has  certain  distinct  advantages  over  the  average 
parent,  in  respect  of  his  personal  relations  to  the 
development  of  the  youthful  life.  In  the  case  of 
the  adult  pupil  in  the  most  advanced  forms  of  edu- 
cation, whether  in  the  Graduate  Department  of  the 
University  or  in  the  Professional  School,  there  is 
a  voluntary  assumption  of  this  relation  which  gives 
opportunity  for  the  most  effective  and  valuable 
species  of  intercourse  between  persons.  But  I 
have  already  sufficiently  remarked  upon  this  kind 
of  advantages  which  the  process  of  education  puts 
into  the  teacher's  hand. 

It  will  be,  in  large  part,  the  purpose  of  this 
entire  course  of  lectures  to  apply  the  principles 
which  should  regulate  all  intercourse  between  per- 
sons to  the  special  case  of  the  professional  teacher. 
But  the  very  conception  of  education  as  involving 


34      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

a  special  kind  of  pergonal  intercourse  gives  the 
opportunity  to  call  attention  to  the  following  prac- 
tical truths.  And  first,  the  work  of  the  teacher 
flourishes  best  under  the  influence  of  a  high  esti- 
mate of  the  value  of  personal  qualities  and  of  the 
personal  life.  Such  an  estimate  can  not,  of  course, 
be  expected  of  the  very  young  pupil ;  but  it  may  be 
slowly  and  insensibly  cultivated  in  the  minds  of 
even  the  youngest  pupils.  It  should  be  held  by  the 
teacher,  however,  as  the  indispensable  condition 
and  the  constant  accompaniment  of  all  his  profes- 
sional work.  Books,  buildings,  methods,  results 
that  can  be  tested  by  examinations  or  exhibitions  of 
attainments  and  skill  of  various  kinds — all  these 
matters  are  accessory,  and  being  only  accessory,  are 
of  inferior  value.  It  is  the  kind  of  persons  who 
are  being  engaged  in,  and  produced  and  nurtured 
by,  this  species  of  personal  intercourse,  that  fur- 
nishes the  material  for  the  soundest  and  final  esti- 
mate of  the  results  of  education.  To  manufacture 
high-class  persons,  for  all  the  varied  callings  and 
conditions  of  the  national  life,  is  the  task  of  the 
teacher. 

With  this  goes,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  culti- 
vation of  a  due  respect  for  personal  rights.  Both 
teacher  and  pupils,  being  persons,  have  such  sacred 
and  inalienable  rights.  It  is,  therefore,  the  duty  of 
the  teacher  to  have  a  sane  and  well-founded  con- 
ception of  his  own  rights,  and  a  fair  and  even 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  35 

generous  conception  of  the  rights  of  the  pupils  as 
against  himself  and  against  one  another.  There  is 
no  impression  more  helpful  to  the  highest  success 
of  the  teacher  than  the  belief  on  the  part  of  the 
pupils  that  the  man  or  the  woman  who  is  put  over 
them,  to  preserve  order  and  to  enforce  discipline, 
is  perfectly  fair.  Probably,  nothing  more  embar- 
rasses and  thwarts  the  otherwise  most  approved 
methods  in  the  imparting  of  instruction  and  the 
administering  of  a  school,  than  the  suspicion  of 
favoritism.  I  shall  never  forget  the  effect,  in  my 
own  case,  of  being  compelled  to  relinquish  my  right 
of  going  to  the  head  in  a  ** spelling-down  match,'* 
because  the  little  girl,  who  had  been  standing  at 
the  head,  but  had  missed  the  word,  cried  so  piti- 
fully on  being  requested  to  take  her  place  at  the 
foot  of  the  class.  I  was  at  the  time  a  child  of 
only  seven  years.  The  incident,  as  looked  back 
upon  from  the  point  of  view  of  adult  life,  became 
amusing.  But  for  years  after  its  occurrence,  it 
rankled  in  memory  as  an  act  of  gross  injustice ;  and 
I  have  never  been  able  to  consider  it  as  merely  a 
question  appealing  to  a  boy's  sense  of  chivalry. 

But  it  is  especially  necessary  that  the  pupils 
should  be  influenced  by  the  example  of  the  teacher, 
and  if  necessary,  compelled  by  his  authority,  to 
treat  with  respect  one  another's  rights.  All  "bully- 
ing," "fagging,"  ** hazing,"  and  other  invasions 
of  the  rights  of  the  younger  and  weaker  by  the 


36      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

older  and  stronger,  should,  so  far  as  possible,  be 
judiciously  but  sternly  repressed.  I  take  this 
opportunity  to  express  myself  most  unqualifiedly 
and  emphatically  against  all  this  class  of  the  vio- 
lations of  human  rights,  by  whatever  euphonious 
title  such  violations  may  be  named,  or  however 
authorized  and  consecrated  by  ancient  customs,  or 
in  whatever  institution— university,  college,  com- 
mon school,  or  Government  school— they  may  be 
perpetrated.  Especially  obnoxious  and  objection- 
able from  every  point  of  view  is  everything  of 
the  sort  in  the  schools  for  the  training  of  youths  for 
the  army  and  the  navy.  The  claim  that  such  pro- 
cedure helps  to  make  men  brave  and  enduring  is 
absurd,  whether  we  test  it  from  the  point  of  view 
of  ethical  theory  or  that  of  the  experiences  of  his- 
tory. On  the  contrary,  everything  of  the  sort  tends 
to  make  men  either  brutal  or  truckling  and  cow- 
ardly. It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  Japanese  system 
of  education  that,  so  far  as  a  searching  and  nearly 
omniscient  authority  in  such  matters  can  go,  no 
bullying,  fagging,  hazing,  or  anything  of  the  kind, 
is  allowed  in  the  schools  of  Japan.  And  in  the 
army  and  navy,  any  departure  from  courteous  and 
brotherly  conduct,  on  the  part  of  the  officer  toward 
the  private,  is  as  strictly  forbidden  by  the  Imperial 
rescript,  and  is  as  likely  to  be  promptly  and 
severely  punished,  as  are  disobedience  and  insolence 
on  the  part  of  the  private  toward  his  superior. 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  37 

Absolutely  nothing  of  the  brutalities  so  common  in 
the  Russian  and  German  armies  is  known  in  the 
Japanese  army.  But  one  acquainted  with  the  facts 
of  the  Russo-Japanese  war  would  scarcely  venture 
to  accuse  the  Japanese  soldiers  of  either  cowardice 
or  inferior  regard  for  discipline.  Brave,  self- 
respecting,  and  * '  other-regarding ' '  men  and  women 
can  never  be  reared  in  this  country,  unless,  as  boys 
and  girls,  these  same  persons  are  educated  in  a  high 
estimate  and  constant,  practical  regard  for  the 
values  of  personal  lives  and  for  the  rights  inalien- 
able from  personal  beings. 

But  something  even  more  positive  than  all  that 
has  thus  far  been  said,  follows  from  our  conception 
of  the  functions  of  the  teacher  as  an  affair,  through- 
out, of  personal  intercourse.  Successful  teaching 
requires  an  intelligent  devotion  in  personal  service. 
Properly  speaking,  no  person  can  dutifully  serve 
things.  All  real  and  rightful  duty  is  summed  up  in 
the  service  of  persons.  We  speak,  indeed,  of  * '  serv- 
ing tables. ' '  But  to  serve  mere  tables  is  an  ignoble 
thing  and  unworthy  of  any  person— no  matter  how 
ignorant  and  lowly.  But,  for  that  matter,  so  it  is  to 
serve  a  railroad,  or  a  bank,  or  a  university,  or  even 
a  Flag.  I  know  that  we  indulge  ourselves  in  many 
-attractive  and  effective  fictions  connected  with  our 
ideas  of  dutiful  and  faithful  service.  Some  of  these 
fictions  are  very  powerful  for  evil  and  some  of  them 
are  perhaps  equally  powerful  for  good.    But  it  is 


38      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

scarcely  rational  to  be  carried  away  with  enthu- 
eiasm  by  mere  names.  He  who  has  served  the 
Standard  Oil,  or  the  Equitable  Life  Insurance,  or 
Yale  University,  or  Saint  John's  Church,  or  Saint 
Patrick's  Cathedral,  for  an  entire  lifetime,  is  not 
for  that  reason  alone,  necessarily  entitled  to  be 
addressed  in  the  Day  of  Judgment:  *'Well  done, 
good  and  faithful  servant. ' '  But  he  who  faithfully 
and  honestly,  and  efficiently,  serves  the  person  who 
sets  the  tables  or  the  persons  who  eat  at  the  tables, 
and  he  who  serves  in  the  same  way  the  persons  rep- 
resented by  the  names  of  any  of  these  institutions,  is 
entitled  to  this  kind  of  commendation.  It  is  a  far 
more  honorable  and  valuable  service  to  have  con- 
tributed to  the  making  of  one  or  two  intelligent 
and  good  persons,  by  teaching  in  some  obscure 
country  school,  than  simply  to  have  been  cele- 
brated as  a  brilliant  lecturer  at  Harvard  or  Chi- 
cago for  one  or  two  score  of  years.  To  be  **of 
help"  to  his  pupils,  and  to  train  them,  by  example 
and  injunction,  to  help  one  another,  is  the  duty 
and  the  privilege  of  the  teacher's  personal  function. 
Our  thought  of  the  functions  of  the  teacher  as  a 
species  of  personal  intercourse,  and  therefore,  as 
all  coming  under  the  principles  of  a  practical  phi- 
losophy, encourages  a  lofty  aspiration  after  the 
realization  of  personal  ideals.  As  seen  from  the 
point  of  view  set  by  these  principles,  the  noblest 
thing  in  the  worid  is  a  noble  person.     The  most 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  39 

beautiful  thing  in  the  world  is  a  beautiful  person- 
ality. The  old-fashioned  way  of  stating  this  truth, 
but  a  way  the  essential  truth  of  which  can  never 
become  obsolete,  and  which  never  ought  to  be 
allowed  to  become  obscured  by  other  forms  of  esti- 
mating values,  was  to  declare:  "Man  is  the  noblest 
work  of  God."  Translated  into  another  form  of 
language,  which  need  not  conflict  with  the  old- 
lashioned  way,  but  which  may  be  held  to  be  another 
phrase  for  expressing  the  same  thought,  the  physi- 
cal and  social  forces  that  are  shaping  humanity,  all 
seem  aspiring  toward  the  goal  of  producing  the 
perfect  man.  It  is  in  personal  being  that  the  work 
of  Nature  reaches  its  supreme  realization.  But 
education,  in  the  more  limited  meaning  of  the 
word,  aims  at  this  ideal  in  a  somewhat  deliberate 
and  self-conscious  way.  And  since  the  work  of  the 
teacher  makes  him  concerned,  in  a  special  manner, 
in  this  process,  it  involves  both  the  striving  after  a 
personal  ideal  for  himself,  and  also  after  the  pro- 
gressive realization  of  the  same  ideal,  through  his 
influence,  in  others. 

Certain  more  definite  rules,  which  bear  upon  the 
work  and  the  preparation  of  the  teacher,  would 
seem  to  follow  from  the  conception  of  the  process 
of  education  as  a  species  of  personal  intercourse. 
One  of  these  concerns  directly  the  duties  of  the 
appointing  power.  The  possession  of  at  least  a 
satisfactory  mimimum  of  personal  character  is  an 


40      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

indispensable  qualification  for  the  teacher.  This 
mimimum  qualification  should  be  enforced  by  the 
authority  that  appoints  the  teacher.  One  of  the 
stock  questions  on  the  sheets  of  the  agencies  who 
undertake  to  secure  desirable,  if  not  lucrative,  posi- 
tions for  all  intending  teachers  reads  as  follows: 
"Is  he  (or  she)  a  person  of  good  moral  charac- 
ter ?' '  It  has  always  been  a  question  with  me,  when 
answering  the  hundreds  of  such  circulars  received 
during  the  last  forty  years,  how  far  the  question 
itself  is  at  all  seriously  put ;  and  how  far  the  answer 
is  generally  given  with  due  thoughtfulness,  or,  when 
received,  esteemed  of  any  considerable  significance. 
Surely  it  does  mean  something  more  than  whether 
the  applicant  has  ever  been  in  jail  as  convicted  of 
some  heinous  crime  or  misdemeanor.  Yet,  there 
have  been  some  shocking  cases,  where  even  ( ? ) 
college  presidents  have  recommended  to  others,  men 
of  whom  they  themselves  wished  to  be  rid,  but  who 
were  of  either  doubtful  or  vicious  moral  character. 
And  by  common  repute,  in  the  school  districts  of 
the  country  places,  it  is  often  the  relative  of  the 
appointing  power,  or  some  candidate  who  has  some 
sort  of  a  pull,  rather  than  the  one  best  fitted  in 
character  and  attainments  for  the  position,  who 
secures  the  appointment.  On  the  other  hand, 
however,  if  the  standard  of  personal  worth  is  raised 
too  high,  the  supply  of  teachers  might  easily  become 
deficient — a  principle  which  applies  to  the  other 


TEE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  41 

professions  quite  as  much  as  to  the  profession 
of  teaching.  And  as  the  moderator  of  a  meeting 
held  by  a  colored  church  in  the  South  for  the  elec- 
tion of  deacons,  said  in  the  hearing  of  a  friend  of 
mine,  when  the  objection  was  raised  to  the  candi- 
dates that  they  could  not  read  the  Bible:  **What 
are  you  objecting  for?  We  got  to  have  some  dea- 
cons anyhow." 

While,  then,  this  rule,  like  almost  all  other  rules 
applying  to  the  selection  of  individuals  to  whom 
important  trusts  are  to  be  committed,  can  be  en- 
forced only  with  a  relative  and  by  no  means  abso- 
lute success;  there  can  be  little  doubt  about  its 
negative  side,  so  to  say.  No  person  of  unworthy  or 
bad  character  should  be  placed  in  the  position  of  a 
teacher  of  the  young.  This  species  of  personal 
intercourse  demands,  as  few  other  kinds  of  per- 
sonal intercourse  do  demand,  not  only  mental 
equipment  but  moral  fitness. 

It  follows  from  this,  as  the  other  side  of  the 
same  truth,  that  the  qualification  of  personal  worth 
should  be  carefully  cultivated  by  anyone  purposing 
to  exercise  the  functions  of  a  teacher.  I  fail  to  see 
why  it  is  any  less  our  duty  as  teachers,  to  plan  and 
strive  for  a  character  that  is  sound  and  noble  and 
worthy  of  imitation  by  our  pupils,  that  to  observe 
and  listen  and  read,  with  a  view  to  acquiring  knowl- 
edge and  skill  in  imparting  knowledge  to  others. 

As  teachers,  therefore,  we  are  bound  to  remember 


42      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

that  the  most  successful  exercise  of  our  entire 
function  depends,  in  a  pivotal  way,  upon  our 
possession  of  a  worthy  personal  character.  Such  a 
character  will  not,  indeed,  guarantee  or  bring  with 
it  all  the  other  needed  forms  of  the  teacher's  equip- 
ment. One  does  not  necessarily  become  acquainted 
with  the  rules  of  the  simplest  mathematics— much 
less  with  the  laws  of  modern  physics  or  chemistry, 
or  with  the  facts  and  lessons  of  history,  or  with  any 
foreign  language  or  its  literature— by  merely  try- 
ing to  be  good.  On  the  other  hand,  the  possession 
of  any  amount  of  knowledge,  including  an  acquaint- 
ance with  the  latest  discoveries  in  so-called  peda- 
gogy, without  a  cultivated  character,  will  not  qual- 
ify one  to  attain  the  highest  success  as  a  teacher. 
On  this  matter  the  Chinese  have  a  saying,  which 
when  modified  and  expressed  in  rather  blunt  Eng- 
lish, may  be  made  to  read  as  follows:  ** Education 
without  morals  makes  men  knaves;  morals  with- 
out education  leave  men  fools." 

But  the  truth  about  the  whole  matter  lies  far 
deeper  than  this.  For  men  that  are  knaves  are 
fools  as  well;  and  no  man  can  voluntarily  remain 
a  fool  without  becoming  also  somewhat  of  a  knave. 
When  we  tell  the  small  boy  or  girl,  **now  be  good 
and  get  your  lessons,''  we  repose  the  rationality 
of  our  exhortation  upon  the  firmest  of  ethical  foun- 
dations. For  the  moment,  getting  the  lesson  is 
being  good;  and  doing  anything  else  than  getting 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  43 

the  lesson  is  being  bad.  Let  us  look  at  the  subject 
for  an  instant  in  a  manner  worthy  of  thoughtful 
and  mature  minds.  The  acquisition  of  scholarship 
and  science  is  by  nature  such  as  to  call  forth  and 
to  cultivate  some  of  the  most  fundamental  and 
indispensable  of  the  virtues.  Of  these,  the  virtues 
of  industry,  courage,  self-denial,  love  of  the  truth, 
and  respect  for  it,  wisdom,  insight,  etc.,  are  among 
the  most  conspicuous.  This  is,  however,  a  matter 
to  which  I  shall  direct  your  attention  more  in  detail, 
in  two  of  the  subsequent  lectures  of  this  course. 

The  last  of  the  practical  maxims  which  I  shall 
attempt,  at  present,  to  derive  from  the  point  of 
view  which  regards  the  function  of  the  teacher  as 
a  species  of  personal  intercourse,  and  so  essentially 
a  moral  affair,  has  respect  to  the  final  aim  of  the 
teacher.  This  final  aim  should  be  the  upbuilding 
of  personal  character  in  his  pupils.  Here,  how- 
ever, we  must  remember  two  things:  First,  that 
character  is  no  simple  affair,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
an  exceedingly  complex  product;  and  second,  that 
the  complex  elements  of  a  good  and  noble  character 
can  never  be  acquired  in  independence,  one  of 
another,  and,  indeed,  each  one  of  every  other. 
This,  too,  is  a  subject  to  which  reference  will  fre- 
quently be  made  in  other  connections. 

In  closing  the  lecture  of  to-day,  I  wish  to  state  in 
the  briefest  possible  form  the  three  points  of  view, 
which  have  already  been  taken,  and  from  which  I 


44      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

am  proposing  to  consider  all  the  particular  topics 
that  are  to  come  before  us  in  the  entire  course  of 
lectures. 

First:  A  Teacher *s  Practical  Philosophy  aims  to 
discover  and  apply  the  moral  principles  which 
should  control  the  work,  the  equipment,  and  the 
ideals— in  a  word,  the  whole  professional  life  of 
the  teacher. 

Second:  Since  morals  have  to  do  with  the  con- 
duct of  persons,  and  with  personal  relations,  a 
practical  philosophy  for  teachers  must  consider 
teaching  as  a  form  of  personal  intercourse ;  and  the 
rules  governing  it  will,  therefore,  be  such  as  prop- 
erly apply  to  this  special  kind  of  personal  inter- 
course. 

But,  thirdly :  This  special  character  of  the  Teach- 
er's  Practical  Philosophy  will,  necessarily,  be  modi- 
fied by  changes  in  the  educational  conditions,  as 
dependent  upon  different  stages  in  the  world 's  edu- 
cational development,  different  systems  of  educa- 
tion, different  grades  and  institutions  in  the  same 
system,  and  even  different  individual  character- 
istics, as  exemplified  in  both  teachers  and  pupils. 
While,  then,  we  can  not  go  into  all  these  details, 
and  do  not  even  aspire  to  point  out  to  every  indi- 
vidual teacher,  just  how  he  (or  she)  ought  to  do 
in  order  to  make  the  art  flourish,  we  shall  try  to 
produce  from  these  seed-thoughts  a  good  crop  of 
maxims  and  suggestions  for  the  improved  conduct 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  45 

of  the  schoolroom  under  the  existing  conditions  of 
the  system  of  education  in  this  country.  But  I  beg 
you  always  to  remember  that  this  system  is  con- 
fessedly very  imperfect,  is  at  present  undergoing 
much  well  deserved  criticism,  and  is  being  sub- 
jected to  not  a  few  changes,  some  of  which  are 
probably  for  the  worse,  as  some  of  them  are  cer- 
tainly for  the  better. 


LECTURE  III 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER: 
AS  STIMULATING  INTEREST 

In  all  ordinary  cases,  the  pupil  is  dependent 
largely  upon  the  teacher,  for  the  awakening  of 
interest,  not  only  in  the  subjects  of  the  daily  study, 
but  in  the  whole  process  of  education.  The  average 
human  being  is,  as  respects  every  kind  of  work,  a 
lazy  animal.  The  child,  if  healthy,  enjoys  activity, 
indeed ;  but  it  is  such  activity  as  is  primarily  pleas- 
urable, whether  it  tends  to  desirable  ends  in  the 
education  of  the  individual  and  the  race,  or  not. 
It  is,  of  course,  a  matter  with  which  the  tact  of 
the  teacher  is  required  to  deal,  to  make  pleasurable 
the  activities  which  must  be  enlisted  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  educational  process.  But  this  can  never 
be  done,  at  the  starting  points  of  the  process,  in 
any  complete  and  thoroughly  profitable  way.  Play 
may  to  a  certain  extent  be  made  educative ;  but  all 
the  discipline  of  education  can  never  be  converted 
into  play.  Much  of  the  process  of  education  can 
be  made  to  furnish  the  pleasure  which  comes  from 
all  normal,  healthy,  and  properly  controlled  use  of 
our  ** active  powers,'*  only  by  turning  the  love  of 
play,  merely  as  play,  into  the  love  of  work  as  the 

46 


TEE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  47 

noblest,  and  most  satisfying  kind  of  play.  But  just 
this  constitutes  one  of  the  difficult  tasks  of  the  pro- 
fessional teacher. 

The  very  nature  of  the  personal  intercourse  in 
which  the  relations  of  teacher  and  pupil  consist 
puts  the  former  into  the  position  of  a  "starter*'  of 
interest.  The  interest  which  it  is  desirable  to  have 
is  not,  as  yet,  there ;  it  awaits  the  process  of  awak- 
ening. The  teacher  is  in  a  preferred  position  to 
awaken  it. 

But  the  teacher  also  stands  to  the  pupil  in  the 
relation  of  a  guide  and  director  of  interest.  It  is 
comparatively  easy  to  stir  up  a  certain  kind  of 
interest,  over,  or  around,  or  about,  almost  any  kind 
of  subject.  It  is  another,  and  oftentimes  a  much 
more  difficult  matter,  to  aim  that  interest  at  a  re- 
quired piece  of  work;  and  it  is  still  more  difficult 
to  keep  the  interest  persistently  directed  toward  its 
aim,  when  it  appears  clear  that  reaching  what  is 
aimed  at  implies  a  good  deal  of  hard  work.  Obser- 
vation of  this  fact  is  a  bare  commonplace  in  every 
line  of  human  endeavor;  it  is  a  commonplace,  the 
application  of  which  to  experience  is  by  no  means 
confined  to  the  age  of  childhood,  or  to  the  laziest 
of  the  adult  men  and  women  of  any  community. 

Now,  the  teachers  of  the  nation  are  in  such  a 
relation  to  the  youth  of  the  nation,  and  to  the  en- 
tire population  of  the  nation,  as  to  be  the  starters, 
guides,  and  protectors,  of  the  interests  of  educa- 


48      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

tion.  Even  in  the  case  of  nations  where  the  Gov- 
ernmental control  of  the  educational  system,  and 
of  the  institutions  of  education,  is  much  more  strict 
than  it  is  in  the  United  States,  the  public  interest 
in  education  can  not  awaken  or  maintain  itself  at 
any  high  level  without  the  active  cooperation  of 
the  persons  who  do  the  teaching  of  the  nation.  And 
the  first  and  the  perennial  sources  of  any  wide- 
spread and  intelligent  interest,  are  to  be  found  in 
the  work  of  the  classroom.  For  if  the  children  and 
youth  of  the  nation  do  not  become  interested  in 
education,  the  multitudes  of  the  nation  will  not 
long  remain  interested  in  education.  Institutions 
are  sure  to  languish,  when  the  minds  who  plan  and 
execute  the  plans  that  form  the  institutions  are 
allowed  to  lose  interest. 

The  function  of  the  teacher,  which  consists  in 
stimulating  interest  in  the  pupils,  can  be  best 
treated  by  basing  our  treatment  on  the  psycho- 
logical doctrine  of  attention.  For,  so  far  as  inter- 
est is  under  control,  whether  by  the  self  or  by 
others,  the  doctrine  of  interest  is  identical  with  the 
doctrine  of  attention.  Nothing  is  more  common 
with  us  teachers  than  to  exhort  or  command  our 
pupils  to  give  attention;  or  in  case  we  have  found 
open  exhortation  and  express  command  rather  in- 
effective, to  resort  to  some  roundabout  and  even 
trickish  methods  in  order  to  secure  what  we  desire. 
Indeed,  of  late,  the  relation  of  interest  to  attention, 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  49 

and  the  absolute  necessity  of  attention  in  the  edu- 
cative process,  have  become  so  much  expounded  in 
pedagogical  literature,  and  so  insisted  upon,  as  to 
put  an  almost  intolerable  burden  upon  the  consci- 
entious teacher.  He  is  made  to  feel  as  though  he 
were  a  sort  of  Adam,  or  **  first-father  "  of  the  entire 
race  of  his  pupils,  and  so  in  a  wholly  mysterious 
and  unavoidable  way  responsible  for  the  sins  and 
moral  and  mental  deficiencies  of  all  his  numerous 
descendants.  It  becomes  eminently  necessary,  then, 
for  the  teacher  who  would  escape  as  much  as  pos- 
sible of  this  load  of  guilt,  to  inquire  diligently  into 
the  rules  for  the  shaping  of  his  conduct  according 
to  a  valid  knowledge  of  the  nature  and  develop- 
ment of  the  power  of  giving  and  eliciting  attention. 
The  first  thing  to  notice  in  studying  this  subject 
is  the  fact  that  there  can  never  be  in  a  living  and 
conscious  human  being,  a  complete  lack  of  some 
kind  and  degree  of  attention.  Attention  is  the 
indispensable  condition  and  constant  accompani- 
ment of  all  mental  activitj^  All  kinds  of  conscious 
states  are  necessarily  characterized  by  more  or  less 
of  attention— either  such  as  we  call  *' forced'*  or 
such  as  we  have  a  right  to  consider  *' voluntary" 
and  ''selective.'*  We  should  not  be  far  wrong, 
if  we  said  that  consciousness  is,  essentially,  either  a 
wandering  and  relatively  rapid  and  uncontrolled 
redistribution  of  psychic  energy  in  the  form  of 
attention;  or  else,  a  relatively  concentrated,  fixed, 


50      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

and  voluntary  distribution  of  energy— also  in  the 
form  of  attention. 

But,  again,  attention  is  the  prerequisite  and  the 
accompaniment  of  all  mental  development.  No 
other  one  test  of  the  stage  reached  in  the  process 
of  education  is  at  once  more  severe  and  more  deci- 
sive than  that  of  a  cultivated  and  self -controlled 
attention.  Notice  the  child  who  is  born  an  idiot, 
or  who  is  suffering  as  a  case  of  arrested  develop- 
ment. There  is  the  rolling  head  and  the  wandering 
eye,  making  impossible  the  fixation  of  attention,  in 
the  act  of  vision.  There  is  evidence  of  the  same 
inability  to  listen— an  activity  which  is  something 
more  than  mere  hearing,  and  implies  the  power  to 
render  a  measure  of  voluntary  attention.  The  very 
beginnings  of  the  attempt  to  educate  this  idiotic  or 
backward  child  must  be  laid  in  the  effort  to  elicit 
interest  and  fix  attention.  The  truth,  however,  does 
not  apply  to  these  unfortunate  human  beings  alone, 
or  even  in  any  essentially  different  way.  All  men- 
tal development  takes  place  as  conditioned  upon 
the  growth  of  the  qualities  of  trained  and  available 
powers  of  attention. 

The  chief  qualities  to  which  reference  has  just 
been  made,  and  the  growth  in  which  furnishes  the 
indispensable  conditions  of  all  mental  development 
are  these;  (1)  Intensity,  or  concentration  of  atten- 
tion; (2)  circuit  covered,  or  comprehensiveness  of 
attention;  (3)  rapidity,  or  speed  of  the  movement 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  51 

of  attention;  (4)  the  selective  or  voluntary  char- 
acter of  attention.  Briefly  to  describe  these  changes 
in  the  quality  of  the  ability  to  give  attention,  which 
the  function  of  the  teacher  binds  him  to  try  to 
secure,  we  may  say :  * '  The  educated  mind  can  con- 
centrate its  energy  on  some  particular  object  or 
group  of  objects,  as  the  uneducated  mind  can  not; 
it  can  give  more  of  attention.  It  can  also  attend  to 
more  objects  at  the  same  time;  it  can  cover  in  a 
practically  simultaneous  manner  a  much  wider  field 
of  attention.  The  trained  mind  can  also  move 
more  rapidly  than  the  untrained  mind  in  the  distri- 
bution and  redistribution  of  the  energy  of  atten- 
tion ;  it  can  get  over  more  ground  in  the  same  unit 
of  time. ' '  Children  of  slow-moving  power  of  atten- 
tion are  necessarily  backward  in  their  studies. 
*^Slow  but  sure"  is  a  motto  which  expresses  a  cer- 
tain truth;  but  ** quick  and  sure"  is  better.  Above 
all  else,  however,  the  art  of  the  teacher  is  called  for 
in  the  effort  to  put  the  pupil  in  control  of  his  own 
attention.  The  self -aontrol  of  attention  is  the  most 
important  thing  in  education.  The  very  core  of 
education,  so  to  say,  is  the  cultivation  of  the  power 
of  self-control  in  that  concentration,  readjustment 
and  direction  of  mental  energy  which  we  call  *' vol- 
untary attention." 

And  now,  from  the  very  nature  of  attention  and 
from  the  laws  which  control  its  development,  it  fol- 
lows that  the  culture  of  attention,  and  the  awaken- 


52      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

ing  and  direction  of  interest  as  related  to  this 
culture,  are  of  the  utmost  importance  in  the  attain- 
ments of  science  and  in  the  building  of  character. 
Without  giving  an  interested  and  cultivated  atten- 
tion to  things,  we  can  not  know  them — what  they 
are  or  how  to  use  them.  Especially  does  the  growth 
of  all  science  and  the  construction  of  scientific 
system  require  the  service  of  minds  trained  in  the 
self-control  of  an  interested  attention. 

But  more  important  even  than  this  is  the  fact 
that  the  growth  of  voluntary  and  selective  attention 
determines  the  formation  and  development  of  per- 
sonal character.  A  person  who  does  not  take  heed 
to  his  ways  can  not  possibly  become  a  good  person. 
Not  to  take  heed  to  one 's  ways  is  the  essence  of  the 
immorality  of  frivolity.  And  ''frivolity,"  says 
Humboldt,  **  undermines  all  morality  and  permits 
no  deep  thought  or  pure  feeling  to  germinate ;  in  a 
frivolous  soul  nothing  can  emanate  from  princi- 
ple, and  sacrifice  and  self-conquest  are  out  of  the 
question."  Indeed,  it  might  be  claimed  that  the 
very  birth  of  a  true  personality,  the  rising  above 
the  plane  of  the  animal,  the  construction  of  a  Self, 
in  the  highest  acceptation  of  that  term,  depends 
upon  the  growth  of  voluntary  and  selective  atten- 
tion. And  certainly  the  ascending  stages  in  self- 
hood, through  which  the  individual,  and  the  race 
are  compelled  to  pass,  are  all  dependently  related 
to  the  growth  and  education  of  a  self-controlled 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  53 

and  properly  directed  attention  and  interest.  Ac- 
cording to  a  man 's  interests,  so  is  he ;  according  to 
what  a  man  attends  to,  so  is  his  life,  mental,  spir- 
itual, and  practical. 

And  now  let  us  consider  some  of  the  more  spe- 
cific problems,  as  they  present  themselves  to  the 
teacher  in  the  pursuit  of  his  daily  routine,  which 
are  connected  with  the  theory  of  interest  and  its 
influence  over  the  development  of  the  power  of 
attention.  And,  first,  I  will  speak  briefly  of  the 
more  obvious  and  important  physiological  condi- 
tions of  interest  and  attention.  Prolonged  excite- 
ment of  interest  and  concentration  of  attention 
seems  to  make  a  corresponding  demand  upon  the 
stores  of  energy  which  belong  to  the  centers  of  the 
brain— especially  those  most  closely  correlated  with 
the  particular  forms  of  mental  activity  emphasized 
by  the  special  interest  excited  and  the  special  kind 
of  attention  demanded.  Here  it  should  be  explained 
that  the  conception  of  the  older  form  of  phre- 
nology, which  aimed  to  locate  the  so-called  faculty 
of  attention  in  some  particular  part  of  the  brain 
as  its  organ,  has  no  standing  in  modern  physi- 
ology. There  is  no  one  organ  of  attention.  We 
have,  however,  indisputable  evidence  that  certain 
of  the  cerebral  areas  are  related  in  a  special  way 
to  particular  ones  of  the  more  elementary  forms  of 
mental  functioning.  With  this  rather  vague,  gen- 
eral meaning  we  may  speak,  for  example,  of  visual 


54      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

areas,  auditory  areas,  motor  areas— and  even,  within 
the  wider  motor  area,  of  areas  for  the  arm,  the 
leg,  the  fore-arm,  and  the  fingers.  It  follows,  then, 
that  there  are  many  centers  of  the  brain,  on  the 
integrity  and  well-nourished  condition  of  which, 
the  power  to  give  attention  is  indirectly  dependent. 
To  give  attention  with  the  eye  makes  a  special  de- 
mand upon  the  so-called  visual  centers;  to  give 
attention  with  the  ear,  upon  the  so-called  auditory 
centers;  to  kick  football,  upon  the  leg  centers;  to 
use  a  pen,  upon  the  hand  centers,  etc.,  etc. 

I  need  scarcely  do  more  than  call  your  attention 
to  some  of  the  conditions  which  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
teacher,  so  far  as  is  possible,  to  secure  for  himself 
and  his  pupils,  in  order  to  make  it  easy  and  safe 
to  excite  interest,  and  to  give  a  concentrated,  intel- 
ligent, and  prolonged  attention.  Among  these  con- 
ditions are  an  abundance  of  oxygen  so  that  the 
brain  may  be  supplied  with  properly  aerated 
blood ;  a  sufficient  supply  of  nourishing  food,  altho 
here  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  a  much  smaller 
quantity  of  food  than  we  are  accustomed  to,  if 
properly  selected,  prepared,  'and  well  digested, 
will  amply  suffice,  and  that  today,  in  this  country, 
the  danger  to  both  pupils  and  teachers  is  probably 
that  of  over-eating  rather  than  that  of  being  under- 
fed. It  is  especially  necessary  also — and  here  is 
where  the  trained  skill  of  the  conscientious  teacher 
may  prove  most  effective— not  to  let  limits  be  passed 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  55 

beyond,  where  temporary  fatigue  results  in  perma- 
nent brain  exhaustion.  Since  varied  attention  dis- 
tributes, as  it  were,  the  results  of  fatigue  over  sev- 
eral areas,  we  have  the  practical  rule  that  to  vary 
the  forms  of  attention  given  to  essentially  the  same 
subject,  and  to  shift  from  visual  to  auditory,  and 
then  to  motor  attention,  is  good  practise  in  the 
interests  of  brain  economy. 

One  other  important  principle  of  the  physiologi- 
cal theory  of  interest  and  attention,  which  the  con- 
scientious and  intelligent  teacher  is  sure  to  employ, 
deserves  mention  in  this  connection.  It  is  highly 
probable  that  every  excitement  of  interest  and  every 
act  of  attention,  if  objectively  directed,  has  some 
motor  accompaniment.  This  is  to  say,  that  we 
can  not  attend  to  any  object  in  an  interested  way, 
without  a  constant  adjustment  of  our  muscular 
organism  to  that  particular  object.  We  see,  and 
hear,  and  locate,  and  know  what  things  are  and 
what  they  are  doing,  only  as  we  are  able  to  move 
the  organs  with  which  we  do  our  seeing,  hearing, 
locating,  and  learning  of  the  nature  and  doings  of 
things.  The  human  infant  has  probably  bad  some 
sensations  due  to  its  movements  in  the  womb  of 
its  mother.  But,  however  this  may  be,  we  know 
that  the  healthy  infant,  as  soon  as  born,  is  launched 
on  a  sea  of  ceaseless  movement.  While  awake,  it  is 
always  squirming,  winking,  rolling  its  eyes  and 
head  about,  reaching  and  striking  with  its  arms, 


66      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

and  kicking  with  its  legs.  In  this  way  alone  can  it 
learn  its  own  Self  and  the  world  of  its  environ- 
ment. And  when  the  infant  becomes  a  learned 
adult,  and  is  seated  in  the  study  planning  books, 
or  in  the  office  laying  plans  for  the  capture  of  a 
railroad  or  of  an  empire,  we  have  good  reason  to 
believe  that  every  mental  image  and  every  train  of 
associated  thoughts,  has  its  proper  motor  accom- 
paniment and  support. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  excitement  of  interest  and 
the  training  of  attention  are  not  possible  without 
taking  into  the  account  this  motor  apparatus.  It 
should  be  called  into  service,  and  trained  in  serv- 
ice, in  the  pursuit  of  every  kind  of  knowledge. 
"While  we  can  not  let  the  pupils  talk  and  walk 
about  and  act  as  freely  in  all  ways,  as  some  of  our 
kindergartens  and  educational  experiment  stations 
have  thought  it  wise  to  do ;  and  while  we  need  not 
admire  and  imitate  the  schools  in  the  mosques  of 
Mohammedan  countries,  where  all  the  scholars  are 
swaying  themselves  back  and  forth  and  repeating 
discordant  passages  of  the  Koran,  we  should  learn 
that  the  effort  to  suppress  all  motion  in  the  school- 
room is  ^s  foolish  as  it  is  cruel.  Indeed,  since  in 
my  adult  life,  I  have  had  opportunity  to  renew  the 
impressions  of  my  youth,  as  the  hearer  rather  than 
the  speaker,  both  in  the  church  and  in  the  class- 
room, I  am  more  and  more  inclined  to  sympathize 
with  the  pupil  when  he  is  inordinately  represt. 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  67 

In  general,  the  physiological  theory  of  interest 
and  attention— so  far  as  we  oan  properly  speak  of 
any  such  theory— affords  grounds  both  for  caution 
and  for  encouragement.  The  human  brain,  and 
especially  the  brain  of  the  child,  is  an  inconceivably 
complex  and  delicate  piece  of  mechanism.  It  may 
be  quickly  injured  and  placed  in  a  condition  from 
which  recovery  will  be  slow  and  difficult,  or  even 
impossible.  It  may  be  by  nature  so  constituted  as 
to  admit  of  only  a  very  much  hampered  and  quite 
Strictly  limited  development.  Its  handling,  as  it  is 
given  into  the  hands  of  the  professional  teacher 
to  handle  it,  demands  more  conscientious  care,  and 
scarcely  less  trained  skill,  than  are  demanded  by 
the  most  delicately  constructed  piece  of  physical 
mechanism.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  more  we 
learn  about  the  possibilities  of  results  from 
improved  opportunities  and  improved  methods,  the 
more  we  may  be  encouraged.  We  shall  never, 
indeed,  escape  the  necessity  of  time ;  never  remove 
all  natural  obstacles  and  inborn  differences.  Some 
of  our  pupils  will  always  be  handicapped  by  the 
inheritance  of  a  disordered  or  inferior  central 
nervous  system.  They  can  not  be  interested  in 
learning  under  instruction,  or  be  made  to  give 
attention,  as  others  of  their  schoolmates  can.  But 
the  human  brain,  properly  treated,  will  stand  an 
immense  amount  of  work,  not  only  without  injury, 
but  with  positive  profit.     Indeed,  idle  brains  are 


58      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

not  apt  to  be  healthy  brains.  The  brain  can  be 
improved  and  ** toughened"  by  judiciously  directed 
exercise,  as  truly,  altho  not  in  the  same  way,  as 
muscle  can.  And  in  my  judgment,  we  are  scarcely 
on  the  threshold  of  the  discovery  of  what  economies 
are  necessary  to  make  our  system  of  public  and  uni- 
versity education  count  for  manifold  times  the 
value  of  its  present  products. 

I  am  going  to  speak  now  of  the  subject  as 
approached  from  the  side  of  feeling.  And  in  the 
widest  acceptation  of  the  word  * '  feeling, "  it  is  this 
side  of  the  subject  which  it  is  of  the  most  practical, 
immediate  value  to  know  more  about.  Let  us  con- 
sider, then,  the  Emotional  Conditions  of  Attention 
and  the  Conditions  of  the  Emotion  of  Interest. 
Plainly,  it  is  here— namely,  in  the  realm  of  feeling 
and  emotion— that  interest  and  attention  have  their 
place  of  meeting.  The  ordinarily  accepted  rule  is 
that  voluntary  attention  varies,  in  its  intensity  and 
direction,  in  dependence  upon  the  rise  and  fall,  and 
the  direction,  of  interest.  From  this  supposed  law 
has  been  deduced  the  practical  maxim,  which 
imposes  upon  the  teacher  the  duty  of,  by  all  means, 
exciting  the  interest  of  the  pupil  in  order  thus  to 
get  control  over  the  attention.  This  has  been  car- 
ried to  such  an  extreme  as  to  make  the  principal, 
and  in  certain  instances,  almost  the  only  marked 
qualification  required  of  the  teacher,  the  power  to 
excite  a  great  amount  of  interest.    When  enforced 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  59 

in  unrestricted  fashion,  this  maxim  may— as  I 
have  already  indicated— result  in  putting  upon  the 
profession,  a  most  mischievous,  intolerable,  and 
absurd  burden.  It  is  part  of  the  general  tendency 
in  our  entire  system  of  education  in  this  country, 
which  is  now — there  is  reason  to  believe— being 
recognized  as  extreme  and  so  is  being  opposed,  to 
make  all  life  and  all  training  for  life,  as  easy  and 
pleasant  as  possible.  But  man's  environment  is 
not  constituted  in  this  way.  And  whatever  changes 
he  may,  through  his  enterprise  and  his  scientific 
attainments,  succeed  in  making  in  this  environment, 
he  will  never  succeed  in  getting  all  the  roughness 
out  of  it.  It  is  abundantly  fortunate,  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  higher  forms  of  human  development, 
and  in  the  practise  of  many  of  the  nobler  virtues, 
and  in  the  building  of  admirable  character,  that 
all  this  is  so.  If  the  races  which  pride  themselves 
upon  being  superior  do  not  heed,  and  act  upon  this 
truth,  they  will  be  supplanted,  in  due  time,  by 
the  more  vigorous  and  still  enduring  of  the  races. 

There  is  obvious  truth  in  the  demand  that  the 
teacher  should  try  to  get  the  emotion  of  interest 
enlisted  in  the  awakening  and  training  of  the  atten- 
tion. Indeed,  the  truth  is  so  obvious,  and  has  been 
of  late  so  much  insisted  upon,  that  I  need  do 
scarcely  more  than  mention  it.  But  there  is 
another,  even  more  important,  but  much  neglected 
principle,  which  is  also  intimately  related  to  this 


60      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

particular  function  of  the  teacher.  The  highest 
and  most  effective  kind  of  interest  itself  can  not  be 
obtained  without  such  discipline  of  attention  as 
shall  end  in  being  productive  of  a  pleasurable  inter- 
est. In  other  words:  If  the  culture  of  attention 
depends  on  the  excitement  of  interest,  it  is  equally 
true  that  the  excitement  and  culture  of  the  right 
kind  of  interest  depend  upon  the  discipline  of 
attention.  On  the  whole  subject,  then,  the  follow- 
ing considerations  should,  I  think,  serve  to  guide 
the  teacher  who  wishes  to  have  his  practise  corre- 
spond to  the  principles  that  apply  to  this  species  of 
personal  intercourse. 

Before  we  approve  of  the  excitement  of  interest 
in  any  particular  case,  we  need  always  to  inquire : 
**  Toward  precisely  what  is  this  interest,  when 
excited,  going  to  be  directed  V*  It  is  always  easy, 
especially  with  children  and  youth,  to  excite  some 
stir  of  interest,  in  some  kind  of  a  thing.  A  blase 
condition  of  mind  is  as  rare  as  it  is  unnatural  with 
this  class  of  persons.  To  be  interested,  and  even 
enthusiastic,  is,  the  rather,  the  natural  condition 
in  their  case.  But  what  kind  of  interest ;  and  inter- 
est in  what  ?  To  make  it  the  right  kind  of  interest 
in  the  desired  object — this  is  not  an  easy  task  for 
the  person  who  is  the  appointed  stimulator  and 
director  of  interest,  in  the  way  of  a  genuine  edu- 
cation. I  repeat,  we  can  reckon  on  the  boy  or  girl 
being  excited  to  interest  in  something ;  and  we  can 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  61 

be  sure  that  every  boy  and  girl,  however  seemingly 
stupid,  is  attending  to  something— unless,  indeed, 
the  pupil  has  fallen  fast  asleep  in  our  classroom. 
But  what  we  want  is  to  excite  the  interest  and  con- 
trol the  attention  along  certain  definite  lines,  con- 
tributory to  a  real  increase  in  the  right  kind  of 
knowledge,  and  to  the  development  of  the  right 
kind  of  character.  Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves, 
then,  by  our  skill  and  success  in  keeping  our 
pupils  interested.  Some  of  the  poorest  teachers, 
as  judged  by  the  net,  permanent  and  valuable 
results  of  their  work,  have  had  the  most  reputation 
for  being  ''interesting.''  On  the  other  hand,  of 
course,  ^^ deadly  dull"  is  a  phrase  which  easily 
explains  itself,  when  applied  to  the  effect  of  the 
teacher's  personal  intercourse  with  his  pupils. 

Another  psychological  principle  bids  us  remem- 
ber that  excessive  emotional  excitement,  even  in 
the  form  of  interest  in  the  right  sort  of  a  sub- 
ject, and  at  the  proper  time,  is  often  extremely 
prejudicial  to  the  exercise  and  cultivation  of  the 
right  kind  of  attention.  The  direction  of  the  atten- 
tion to  just  the  right  points  for  observation  and 
commitment  to  memory,  and  the  application  of 
cool  judgment  in  discrimination,  are  not  compatible 
with  a  great  and  sudden  stirring  of  excited  emo- 
tions of  interest.  Thus,  the  attempt  really  to 
instruct  by  the  vivid  picturing  of  objects,  without 
taking  time  for  the  calm  and  somewhat  detailed 


62      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

explanation  of  the  meaning  to  intellect  of  what  the 
eye  seizes  upon  with  an  excited  interest,  may  lead 
to  its  failure  as  a  means  of  genuine  education.  The 
new  method  of  picturing  everything  which  is  being 
extended  to  the  proposal  to  refine,  morally,  and 
even  to  convert  the  people,  by  showing  them  pic- 
tures of  Biblical  scenery  and  incidents,  has  its 
reasonable  side  and  prospect  of  profit  in  the  inter- 
ests of  education.  But,  overworked  and  relied  upon 
too  exclusively,  it  is  doomed  to  issue  in  disap- 
pointment. And  one  or  two  pictures  that  do  not 
move,  but  stay  there  until  they  can  be  explained 
and  learned  in  something  approaching  their  full 
significance,  are  worth  far  more  than  a  score  of 
diverting  and  rapidly  moving  pictures.  The  latter, 
indeed,  however  much  they  may  do  in  the  way  of 
exciting  interest  and  attracting  attention,  may  be 
misleading  and  mischievous  as  respects  the  more 
valuable  ends  of  education. 

And  now  I  am  going  to  call  your  attention  to 
another  psychological  principle,  which  is  even  more 
important,  but  which  has  hitherto  been  almost 
entirely  overlooked  in  the  recent  discussions  of  edu- 
cational methods.  In  many  classes  of  objects,  and 
in  many  cases  among  all  classes  of  pupils— espe- 
cially where  attention  requires  hard  work  to  be 
done — interest  is  rather  the  result  than  the  precon- 
dition of  training  attention.  I  repeat  here,  that 
the  average  human  being,  especially  when  young, 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  63 

is  naturally  active,  but  does  not  love  work.  To 
work  and  to  be  ''irked*'  are  one  and  the  same  thing 
with  him.  But  Nature  makes  him  work.  To  use 
the  vulgar  but  expressive  way  of  stating  this  truth : 
With  man,  as  with  all  the  animals,  it  is  '  *  Root  hog, 
or  die."  The  average  child  is  not  pleased  to  work. 
The  average  college  student  does  not  elect,  of  his 
own  uninstructed  good  pleasure,  the  courses  that 
compel  him  to  do  hard  work.  If  he  did,  there 
would  be  a  complete  upsetting  of  all  the  class  sta- 
tistics as  to  favorite  teachers,  popular  courses,  and 
all  that  sort  of  thing.  But  neither  child  nor  college 
student  can  be  educated  without  being  made  to 
work ;  and  one  of  the  special  aims  of  education,  and 
special  triumphs  of  the  really  successful  teacher, 
is  to  train  the  pupil  so  that  he  will  take  pleasure  in 
work.  The  rule  ought  to  be  reversed  then ;  it  ought 
to  read— not  **Let  the  pupil  do  what  it  pleases  him 
to  do,**— but  *'Let  the  pupil  be  disciplined  in  some 
kind  of  work,  until  he  takes  pleasure  in  the  work.** 
All  that  I  have  said  against  making  the  awaken- 
ing of  interest  an  end  in  itself,  and  against  the  rat- 
ing of  teachers  too  much  by  their  reputation  for 
being  entertaining  and  able  to  excite  a  great 
amount  of  a  certain  kind  of  interest,  and  against 
the  excessive, — not  to  say,  exclusive  use  in  educa- 
tion, of  means  that  so  often  end  merely  in  the 
excitement  of  interest, — all  this  is  not  to  be  under- 
stood as  underestimating  the  importance  of  this 


64      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

particular  function  of  the  professional  teacher.  It 
is  most  important,  and  desirable,  and  even  indis- 
pensable to  the  success  of  the  teacher,  that  he 
should  be  able  to  excite  a  certain  measure  of  inter- 
est in  the  subjects  he  is  teaching;  and,  indeed,  in 
the  whole  matter  of  education  in  every  branch 
and  department  of  it.  This  lecture,  we  must  not 
forget,  is  based  upon  the  assumption,  that  one  of 
the  most  important  of  all  the  offices  of  the  teacher 
is  just  this— namely,  to  be  an  exciter  and  director 
of  interest,  and  in  this  way  to  direct  and  discipline 
the  powers  of  attention. 

But  how  shall  this  be  done?  I  do  not  doubt 
that  every  one  of  my  hearers  has  asked  this  ques- 
tion of  himself  and  of  others,  over  and  over  again. 
Bome  of  us  have  asked  it,  as  about  the  most  puz- 
zling and  anxious  question  which  we  could  possibly 
put.  And  so  I  hasten  to  assure  you  that,  in  my 
judgment,  the  conscientious  teachers  of  the  country 
— and  this  class  includes  the  majority  of  the  teach- 
ers of  this  country— have  on  the  whole  come  to  feel 
too  keenly  the  obligation  to  answer  this  question  in 
a  practical  way.  I  should  be  the  last  person  to 
disavow,  or  even  to  lessen,  the  teacher's  moral 
responsibility  for  the  character  and  the  results  of 
his  work.  This  course  of  lectures  has  its  aim  in 
just  the  opposite  direction.  At  the  same  time,  I  do 
not  at  all  believe  that  it  is  the  teacher's  duty,  or 
within  the  teacher's  power,  to  make  everything 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  65 

interesting  to  all  of  those  on  whom  his  function 
is  exercised.  Some  of  the  pupils  will  never  have 
much  genuine  interest  in  the  subjects  which  he  is 
appointed  to  teach.  Not  a  few  of  them  will  never 
be  interested  in  anything  that  involves  downright 
hard  work.  Believing  this  to  be  true,  and  also 
knowing  that  the  varied  practical  problems  which 
vex  us  so  much  do  not  all  admit  of  giving  rules  for 
their  solution,  but  are  matters  which  belong  to  the 
intuitions  of  a  so-called  tactful  person,  I  shall  con- 
tent myself  with  a  few  suggestions. 

And,  first :  "Whenever  it  is  possible,  attention  and 
voluntary  and  attentive  discrimination  should  be 
called  out  and  directed  in  connection  with  the  use  of 
the  senses  and  motor  mechanism.  This  is  especially 
true  of  the  beginning  stages  of  education  or  of  any 
particular  study.  To  use  their  own  senses  and 
motor  organs  upon  things  is,  other  conditions  being 
at  all  equal,  the  most  interesting  way  for  children 
and  even  for  adults  to  learn  about  things.  What 
the  eye  sees,  the  ear  hears,  the  hands  manipu- 
late, that  is  likely  to  excite  most  interest,  and  to 
attract  and  fix  the  most  prolonged  and  intelligent 
attention;  and  so  to  be  most  thoroughly  learned. 
But  all  this  has  been  so  much  emphasized  in  modem 
educational  theory,  and  is  so  undisputed,  that  I  do 
not  need  to  speak  of  the  matter  with  any  detail. 

This  teaching  by  concrete  example,  however,  has 
certain  dangers.    There  is  the  danger  of  failing  to 


66      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

observe  the  more  important  likenesses  and  unlike- 
nesses  of  things.  And  there  is  the  danger  of  imper- 
fect or  erroneous  use  of  the  imagination.  Against 
these  and  other  similar  dangers  connected  with  the 
use  of  such  means  for  exciting  interest,  it  is  the 
office  of  the  teacher  to  protect  the  pupil. 

Other  forms  of  the  natural  emotions  may  be 
sparingly  and  judiciously  appealed  to  in  the  effort 
to  awaken  interest,  and  to  train  attentive  discrimi- 
nation. Among  these,  are  the  spirit  of  rivalry,  the 
pleasure  of  self -approbation  and  of  the  approba- 
tion of  others,  etc.,  etc.  This  use  of  *' ulterior 
motives,  *'  however,  should  be  subordinated  to  the 
higher  motives,  as  promptly  and  completely  as  can 
well  be,  if  the  teacher  wishes  to  realize  the  most 
worthy  aims  of  his  peculiar  opportunities  for  per- 
sonal influence.  These  most  worthy  aims  call  for 
the  awakening  and  direction  of  an  interested  atten- 
tion in  the  worthiest  and  noblest  objects.  These 
are,  of  course,  such  as  belong  to  the  pursuit  of 
personal  and  social  ideals. 

Again,  the  teacher  must  always  remember  that  it 
is  his  own  profound  and  intelligent  interest  in,  and 
disciplined  attention  to,  his  own  work,  on  which  the 
chief  reliance  must  be  placed  for  arousing  and 
directing  the  interest  of  his  pupils.  The  teacher 
who  is  not  profoundly  interested  in  his  own  fitness, 
and  in  the  manner  of  his  own  work,  and  in  his 
professional  ideals,  can  scarcely  have  any  confi- 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THF  TEACHER  67 

dence  in  his  success  in  arousing  an  interest  in  simi- 
lar matters  on  the  part  of  his  pupils.  Here  again 
we  discover  how  wide  in  the  range  of  its  applica- 
tion is  the  thought  that  the  successful  exercise  of 
the  teaching  function  is  a  matter  of  personal  rela- 
tions and  depends  upon  personal  character. 

And,  finally,  the  more  ultimate  aim  of  the  excite- 
ment and  guidance  of  interest,  and  the  discipline  of 
the  power  of  giving  attention,  is  the  development 
of  that  complex  of  qualities  which  is  sometimes 
called  by  the  one  word  **Will."  This  complex  of 
activities  is,  as  one  of  the  great  German  theologians 
once  said,  *  *  The  heart  of  the  heart  that  is  in  man.  * ' 
As  a  man  wills,  so  in  the  most  essential  aspects,  is 
he.  In  spite  of  all  psycho-physical  and  economic 
theories,  the  supremacy  of  the  so-called  will,  in  the 
determination  of  human  individual  character, 
human  society,  and  human  destiny,  I  believe  to 
rest  on  valid  grounds  of  experience.  And  in  the 
earlier  stages  of  education,  the  training  of  atten- 
tion is  almost  synonymous  with  the  training  of  the 
will.  Here  the  teacher  is  working  at  the  very  foun- 
dations of  character.  But  to  the  consideration  of 
this  subject  I  shall  return  more  than  once  again. 


LECTUEE  IV 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER: 
AS  IMPARTING  KNOWLEDGE 

There  is  no  other  question  which  is  more  promptly 
and  universally  asked  of  us  than  this:  **Are  the 
scholars  learning  anything?''  Does,  or  does  not, 
the  pupil  come  to  know  more  on  account  of  his 
intercourse  with  the  teacher?  Or,  to  reverse  the 
point  of  view:  the  good  and  successful  teacher  is, 
other  things  being  at  all  equal,  the  one  who  imparts 
most  of  knowledge  to  those  committed  to  his  charge. 
And,  indeed,  for  what  other  purpose  than  just  this 
are  they  committed,  in  the  first  instance,  to  his 
charge?  The  correlate  of  teaching  is  learning, 
and  the  business  of  the  teacher  is  to  make  the  pupil 
learn.  The  popular  impression  on  this  subject  is 
illustrated  in  an  amusing  way  by  the  grammati- 
cally vulgar,  but  practically  shrewd,  use  of  the 
verb  **to  learn''  as  a  transitive  verb.  The  teacher 
ought  to  ** learn  his  scholars  something,"  or  he  is 
no  teacher  at  all. 

This  view  of  the  teacher's  peculiar  function, 
when  understood  in  this  unqualified  way,  is  only 
partially  true.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
imparting  of  knowledge  is  one  of  the  most  impor- 

68 


TEE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  69 

tant  of  the  several  ends  which  the  work  of  educa- 
tion must  have  in  view.  The  mere  excitement  of 
interest,  and  the  mere  cultivation  of  the  power  of 
giving  attention,  are  not  ends  in  themselves.  They 
are  means  which  are  indispensable  for  attaining 
any  considerable  increase  in  a  knowledge  of  one's 
Self  and  of  one's  physical  and  social  environment. 
Of  course,  children  are  sent  to  the  public  schools 
in  order  that  they  may  be  allured  or  compelled  to 
learn;  and  those  who  go  voluntarily  to  the  higher 
institutions  of  learning  have  no  business  there, 
unless  they  go  and  remain  there  in  order  to  learn. 
The  many  puzzling  problems  which  the  teacher 
has  to  solve  regarding  the  best  ways  to  impart 
knowledge  require  for  their  theoretical  solution, 
more  than  anything  else,  a  correct  conception  of 
the  nature  of  knowledge,  and  an  acquaintance  with 
the  laws  of  its  development.  And  there  are,  in 
my  judgment,  more  failures  in  the  exercise  of  this 
function  on  the  part  of  us  teachers,  which  are  due 
to  faulty  ideas  on  this  subject,  than  to  any  other 
single  mental  deficiency.  Unless  we  have  ourselves 
some  adequate  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  knowl- 
edge, we  can  not  intelligently  practise  the  art  of 
imparting  knowledge.  In  certain  fortunate  cases, 
natural  tact  may  largely  compensate  for  the  defi- 
ciency in  science.  Many  of  the  rest  of  our  pro- 
fession may  blunder  into  a  tolerable  degree  of  skill 
in  the  exercise  of  this  particular  function.     But 


70      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

too  many,  alas !  will  never  know  whether  they  have 
knowledge  themselves,  or  whether  what  they  are 
imparting  to  their  pupils  is  genuine  knowledge, 
or  whether  they  are  imparting  the  knowledge  which 
they  do  succeed  in  imparting,  in  the  most  eco- 
nomical and  effective  way.  I  ask  your  attention, 
then,  to  a  discussion,  which  is  of  necessity  some- 
what dry  and  technical,  of 

THE    NATURE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

And,  first  of  all,  let  us  look  at  the  matter  from 
the  psychological  point  of  view.  And  here  I  am 
obliged  to  confess  that  there  is  very  little  in  those 
text-books  on  psychology  which  are  most  accessible 
to  the  multitude  of  teachers,  and  which  are  most 
popular  and  most  entertaining,  to  which  I  can  refer 
you  as  at  all  satisfactory.  Every  adult  human  being 
has  a  so-called  ''store"— a  certain  amount  of  sev- 
eral kinds  of  knowledge.  Without  this,  he  would 
not  be  human  at  all ;  without  this  he  could  not  have 
human  intercourse  with  other  men,  could  not  con- 
stitute a  part  of  human,  social  environment. 
Whether  any  of  the  lower  animals  ever  attain  to 
the  slightest  knowledge  essentially  like  human 
knowledge,  remains  at  present,  and  perhaps  for- 
ever must  remain,  an  open  question.  The  animals 
have  sensations,  feelings,  a  certain  form  of  intelli- 
gence and  of  self-control.  But  all  these  do  not,  of 
necessity,  equip  the  being  that  has  them,  for  the 
attainment  of  genuine  knowledge— much  less,  for 


TEE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  71 

any  real  growth  of  knowledge  in  the  higher  forma 
of  science  and  reflective  thinking. 

Since  every  adult  human  being  has  the  experi- 
ence of  knowledge,  it  is  only  natural,  and  in  a 
measure  perfectly  just,  that  every  one  should  think 
that  he  knows  what  it  is  to  know.  But,  to  deter- 
mine and  describe  the  exact  nature,  more  important 
conditions,  and  the  laws  of  the  development  of 
what  we  call  "knowledge,"  involves  all  the  most 
profound  and  obscure  problems  of  psychology  and 
philosophy. 

The  following  remarks  must  suffice,  however,  for 
my  present  purpose.  Every  act  of  knowledge  in- 
volves the  functioning  of  all  the  so-called  faculties 
of  the  mind  in  a  sort  of  living  unity.  If  we  adopt, 
without  stopping  to  criticize  it,  the  ordinary  three- 
fold division  of  these  faculties,  we  may  say  that 
intellect,  feeling,  and  will,  are  all  energizing 
together  in  every  act  of  knowledge.  This  is  essen- 
tially true  in  the  case  of  the  most  receptive  and 
seemingly  passive  attitudes  of  mind.  Knowing  is 
never  mere  receptivity  or  passivity.  This  might  be 
illustrated  by  the  very  meaning  of  the  words  and 
phrases  which  we  employ  in  connection  with  the 
pursuit  and  acquisition  of  knowledge— irrespective 
of  its  degree  and  of  its  kind.  Do  you  **take,*'  or 
**take  in'*  the  idea?  Do  you  ** grasp,*'  or  ** ap- 
prehend" the  meaning  of  the  spoken  or  the  printed 
word;  or  the  nature  and  uses  of  the  object?    Do 


72      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

you  "get  into/'  or  **get  around/'  or  comprehend 
the  meaning  of  the  speaker,  or  the  nature  and  solu- 
tion of  the  particular  scientific  or  social  problem? 
All  these,  and  all  similar  phrases,  imply  as  some- 
thing quite  beyond  doubt,  that  without  activity 
there  is  to  be  no  knowledge  or  growth  of  knowledge. 
For  knowledge  can  not  be  dumped  or  given  over 
ready-made,  into  any  mind. 

Another  aspect  of  the  same  truth  is  brought  to 
our  attention  when  we  recall  how  readily  people 
distinguish  between  the  conditions  of  mind  involved 
in  "seeing"  and  "looking,"  "hearing"  and  "lis- 
tening," "feeling"  and  "handling,"  or  what  psy- 
chologists sometimes  call  "active  and  passive 
touch";  and  as  well,  the  exhortations:  "Tri/  to 
think  or  to  understand."    ^'"-^ 

If  I  were  lecturing  upon  the  psychology  of 
knowledge,  instead  of  n^erely  referring  to  the 
nature  of  knowledge  in  order  to  get  ground  of 
standing  for  some  practical  rules  for  the  teacher 
in  the  discharge  of  his  function  of  imparting 
knowledge,  I  should  undertake  to  show  how  intel- 
lect, feeling  and  will  are  all  involved  in  cognition ; 
and  this  in  many  different  but  important  ways. 
I  shall  content  myself  with  a  word  or  two  upon 
each  of  these  three — namely,  the  intellectual,  the 
emotional,  and  the  voluntary— aspects  of  all  knowl- 
edge. As  it  is,  there  shall  be  only  a  sentence  or  two 
about  each  of  the  three.     There  is  no  knowledge 


TEE  FUt^CTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  73 

without  discrimination ;  that  is,  without  a  noticing 
of  similarities  and  differences.  Now,  it  is  only 
active  intellect  that  can  discriminate;  indeed,  it  is 
not  improper  to  speak  of  intellect  as  essentially, 
"discriminating  faculty.'*  And,  of  course,  there 
can  be  no  development  of  knowledge,  no  growth  of 
science,  without  reasoning.  But  by  intellect  is 
commonly  understood,  the  so-called  **  reasoning  fac- 
ulty.'' Forms  of  emotion  accompany  and  guide  all 
the  work  of  the  intellect  in  its  work  of  discrimi- 
nating and  reasoning.  And  underlying  all  knowl- 
edge, there  are  certain  forms  of  conviction,  or 
belief,  which  are  more  fitly  described  in  terms  of 
feeling  than  in  any  other  way.  Finally— as  we  have 
already  been  frequently  reminded— all  attention  in- 
volves volition,  as  necessary  to  making  it  concen- 
trated, selective,  and  discriminating. 

A  second  important  truth,  on  our  confidence 
in  which  we  must  place  certain  of  the  most  indis- 
pensable rules  for  the  guidance  of  the  professional 
teacher  in  his  efforts  to  impart  knowledge  to  his 
pupils,  is  this:  All  knowledge,  even  the  single  act 
of  knowledge,  is  a  development,  a  growth. 

In  the  earliest  psychic  life  of  the  infant,  there 
are  evidences  of  vague,  fleeting,  fitful  states  of 
consciousness ;  but  there  can  be  no  such  experience 
as  that  of  knowing  anything,  or  about  anything. 
The  new-bom  infant  knows  nothing— neither  its 
Self,  nor  other  persons,  nor  things.    It  must  learn 


74      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

to  know  each  member  of  its  own  body,  as  apart 
from  the  other  members,  as  its  very  own,  and  as 
a  part  of  its  body.  It  must  learn  to  know  each 
thing  as  not  any  part  of  its  own  body;  what  it  is, 
and  what  each  thing  can  do  to  it ;  what  it  can  do  to 
each  thing ;  and  what  things  can  do  to  one  another. 
But  the  same  law  of  growth  applies  to  every  indi- 
vidual act  of  knowledge.  No  sight  or  visual  image, 
no  apprehension— not  to  say,  fuller  comprehen- 
sion—of the  meaning  of  any  sound  is  an  instan- 
taneous affair.  We  attain  true  conceptions  of  all 
things  only  as  products  of  a  growing  knowledge. 
And  the  development  of  our  knowledge  of  our- 
selves, of  other  persons,  and  of  other  things,  is 
never  complete.  For  the  teacher,  as  well  as  the 
pupil,  growth  in  knowledge  is  ceaselessly  to  be 
sought  for  and  to  be  expected.  Such  growth  comes, 
not  simply  through  the  acquiring  of  new  items  of 
information,  but  also  by  the  correction  of  erroneous 
and  only  partially  true  judgments,  by  harmonizing 
and  systematizing  seemingly  contradictory  judg- 
ments, and  by  adapting  our  feelings  of  conviction 
to  the  character  and  the  degree  of  evidence.  It  is, 
then,  our  duty,  as  coming  under  the  unchanging 
principles  of  the  practical  philosophy  which  applies 
to  the  special  kind  of  personal  intercourse,  in  which 
our  profession  consists,  never  to  cease  using  any 
of  these  means  for  the  growth  of  knowledge  in  our- 
selves and  in  our  pupils. 


TEE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  75 

But  in  this  connection  must  be  borne  in  mind 
another  psychological  truth  which  elucidates  the 
nature  of  human  knowledge.  All  knowledge  is 
relative.  To  this  proposition  various  meanings 
have  been  attached,  and  from  it  various  deductions, 
both  theoretical  and  practical,  have  been  drawn. 
Some  writers  have  pressed  this  principle  of  the 
relativity  of  all  knowledge  to  such  an  extreme  as 
to  deny,  virtually,  the  possibility  of  all  knowledge. 
Or  they  have  tried,  while  excluding  from  the  realm 
of  possible  knowledge  all  the  subjects  dear  to  those 
interested  in  morals  and  religion,  to  reserve  the 
right  to  claim  something  only  remotely  resembling 
what  people  ordinarily  understand  by  the  term,  for 
the  students  of  physical  phenomena.  On  the  other 
hand,  since  they  were  unable  to  recognize  the  dif- 
ferences in  degrees  and  kinds  and  certainties  attach- 
ing themselves  to  all  man's  cognitive  experiences, 
others  have  assumed  to  demonstrate  truths  of 
morals  and  religion  after  the  fashion  applicable 
only  to  matters  of  **pure"  mathematics.  In  doing 
this  they  have  forgotten  that  truths  of  morals  and 
religion  have  to  do  with  conduct;  and  that  the 
** purer,"  or  freer  from  all  practical  considerations 
and  applications  any  branch  of  mathematics  is,  the 
more  useless  it  is  in  the  conduct  of  human  affairs. 

Any  detailed  discussion  of  this  difficult  subject 
would  be  quite  out  of  place  in  this  connection.  But 
there  are  two  or  three  aspects  of  the  principle  of 


76      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  relativity  of  knowledge  whicli  have  a  direct 
bearing  upon  that  particular  function  of  the  teacher 
which  consists  in  the  imparting  of  knowledge.  In 
the  first  place :  Both  gaining  and  giving  knowledge 
involve  the  mind's  relating  activity.  Only  as  we 
actively  relate  things  to  us  and  to  each  other,  are 
we  able  to  recognize  them  or  to  know  anything 
about  them.  Knowing  is,  essentially  considered,  a 
relating  activity.  Still  further:  In  imparting 
knowledge,  there  is  no  conveyance  of  absolute  truth 
to  be  sought  for  or  to  be  expected.  In  order  to  get 
imparted  at  all,  the  knowledge  must  be  related  to 
the  case  in  hand,  as  it  were.  In  some  sort,  every  bit 
of  knowledge  must  be  made,  and  must  remain,  the 
individual's  very  own.  There  is  no  most  general 
statement,  or  law — there  is  not  even  any  particular 
fact,  which  means  precisely  the  same  thing  for 
everybody  who,  as  we  say,  knows  it. 

Such  statements  as  I  have  just  made  may  seem, 
at  first  sight,  rather  obscure  and  confusing.  But  I 
shall  have  to  trust  to  your  reflections  upon  them  in 
order  to  make  the  practical  rules  which  follow  from 
the  principle  of  the  relativity  of  knowledge,  and 
which  will  soon  claim  our  attention,  more  clearly 
obvious  and  more  helpful. 

Let  us  now  turn  our  attention  to  certain  rules, 
which  are  founded  upon  the  nature  of  knowledge 
as  its  doctrine  has  just  been  so  insufficiently  ex- 
pounded.   We  see  now  what  is  the  primary  and 


THE  FVNGTWN  OF  TEE  TEACHER  77 

chief  aim  of  the  teacher  in  his  efforts  to  arouse 
interest  and  to  direct  and  discipline  the  attention. 
The  teacher  is  working  to  get  the  pupil  to  work. 
The  imparter  of  knowledge  is  trying  to  put  the 
recipient  of  the  knowledge  into  such  a  frame  of 
mind  that  this  function  of  education  may  be,  in 
fact,  realized.  The  principle  involved  is  this:  A 
purely  recipient  or  passive  human  being  cannot  be 
made  the  subject  of  knowledge.  Knowledge  can 
not  be  given  from  one  mind  to  another,  can  not  be 
passed  between  two  minds,  as  a  piece  of  land  may 
be  conveyed  by  will,  or  a  book  may  be  sent  by  the 
post,  from  one  person  to  another.  Unless  the  relat- 
ing activities  of  the  pupil's  mind  can  be  stirred 
and  guided  to  do  their  part  in  the  compound  trans- 
action, the  teacher  may  know,  never  so  well,  and 
the  teacher  may  strive  never  so  hard  and  skilfully, 
but  no  imparting  of  real  knowledge  will  take  place. 
And  if  the  interest  awakened,  and  the  attention 
secured,  are  to  culminate  in  the  pupil's  making 
some  real  and  valuable  acquisition  of  knowledge, 
then  all  the  various  powers  of  the  pupil's  mind, 
which  are  necessary  to  the  completion  of  an  act  of 
knowledge  must  somehow  be  enlisted.  This  fact 
unites  the  function  of  the  teacher  which  consists  in 
the  imparting  knowledge  with  his  function  in  train- 
ing the  pupil's  faculties — a  subject  that  will  occupy 
us  in  the  next  lecture. 

I  turn  aside  here  for  a  moment  in  order  to  Intro- 


78      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

duce  a  truth  which  constitutes  the  severest  possible 
criticism  of  much  of  our  entire  system  of  modern 
education;  and  to  which  reference  will  several 
times  be  made  in  this  course  of  lectures.  We  have 
gone  to  an  extreme  in  the  effort,  which  when  mod- 
erated and  controlled  is  laudable  enough,  to  make 
everything  attractive  and  easy  for  those  under- 
going the  process  of  education.  In  deference  to 
weak  stomachs,  pre-digested  foods  have  become  all 
the  rage.  In  the  rivalries  of  trade  which  have 
resulted  from  this  effort,  we  have  quite  forgotten 
that  nature  assigned  to  the  human  stomach,  as  well 
as  to  the  stomachs  of  all  the  animals  blest,  or 
curst,  with  this  organ,  precisely  this  work  of 
digesting  the  necessary  amount  of  the  right  kind  of 
food.  And  so,  of  late,  the  physiologists  have  been 
reminding  us  that  the  excessive  use  of  predigested 
food  weakens  the  digestive  apparatus  by  depriving 
it  of  its  legitimate  business.  I  do  not  need  to 
expound  this  parable  at  any  length,  in  order  for 
you  to  ** catch  on'*  to  its  meaning.  But  I  give  my 
unqualified  testimony  to  the  impression  that  a  large 
majority  of  those  who  take  the  examinations  for 
entering  college,  and  a  scarcely  smaller  proportion 
of  those  who  graduate  from  college,  are  educated  in 
the  way  of  having  a  mixed  host  of  confused  ideas 
and  unverifiable  impressions,  on  an  unnecessary 
and  absurd  variety  of  subjects,  which  are  not  prop-" 
erly  related  in  their  minds,   rather  than  a  well- 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  79 

ordered  system  of  verifiable  knowledge,  of  which 
they  know  how  to  make  use  to  the  end  of  acquiring 
more  of  such  knowledge,  or  of  conducting  their 
lives  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  science 
and  morality.  And  the  most  important  reason  for 
this  lamentable  condition  is  the  fact  that  their 
teachers,  however  much  they  have  wished  to  do  so, 
and  however  clearly  they  have  recognized  the  abso- 
lute necessity  of  doing  so,  have  not  been  able,  for 
one  reason  or  another,  to  solicit  or  to  compel  their 
pupils  to  do  their  part  of  the  work  of  being  edu- 
cated. 

The  developmental,  or  evolutionary,  character 
of  knowledge  gives  conditions  to  which  all  the 
work  of  the  teacher  must  conform,  in  his  effort  to 
impart  knowledge  to  those  who  are  committed  to 
his  care  for  purposes  of  education.  Upon  this 
same  principle,  of  the  growth  of  all  knowledge,  in 
the  individual  and  in  the  race,  the  form  given  to 
the  entire  system  of  education  must  depend. 

The  studies  selected  for  teaching  must  be  in  cor- 
respondence with  the  stage  of  the  development  of 
the  pupil  who  is  to  be  taught.  This  rule  is  equally 
applicable,  whether  the  state  or  the  individual 
teacher  has  the  selection  of  studies  and  the  disposal 
of  the  entire  curriculum.  Where  the  election  is 
committed  to  the  pupil,  the  same  rule  ought,  so  far 
as  is  possible  in  such  a  case,  to  be  rigidly  enforced. 
One  of  the  principal  objections  to  anything  resem- 


80      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

bling  an  unlimited  election  on  the  pupil's  part 
arises  from  the  difficulty  of  applying  this  principle, 
under  such  conditions.  It  is  notably  easier  to 
match  the  teaching  to  the  stage  of  the  development 
of  the  person  taught,  when  the  selection  of  subjects 
and  methods  is  determined  from  above  rather  than 
when  it  is  elected  from  below. 

In  all  our  attempts  to  apply  this  rule,  however, 
there  is  risk  in  two  directions.     There  is  confes- 
sedly the  danger  of  over-rating  the  capacity  of 
the  pupil— and  for  that  matter,  of  the  teacher— 
with  respect  to  the  exercise  of  this  function  of 
imparting  knowledge.    This  risk  is  especially  great 
in  certain  subjects,  and  in  the  use  of  certain  meth- 
ods of  instruction.     No  teacher,  for  example,  has 
knowledge  or  skill  enough  to  succeed  in  this  branch 
of  the  educative  process,  in  any  of  the  particular 
sciences,  or  in  the  study  of  any  of  the  languages,  by 
the  method  of  lecturing  alone.     And  where  this 
method  is  almost  exclusively  employed,  the  secret 
motive  being  that  the  teacher  likes  to  hear  his  own 
voice,  or  is  proud  of  making  the  impression  upon 
callow  youth  that  his  own  information  is  special, 
independent,   and   original,   the   procedure   comes 
very  near  to  being  as  immoral  as  it  is  sure  to  be 
ineffective,  when  judged  by  the  result  of  a  real 
imparting  of  knowledge.    It  is,  in  general,  not  the 
teacher  who  talks  most,  who  also  teaches  most. 
The  conscientious  teacher,  however,  often  finds 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  81 

himself  appointed  and  virtually  compelled  to  teach 
a  kind  or  variety  of  subjects,  that  is  quite  beyond 
his  own  stage  in  growth  of  knowledge,  and  hope- 
lessly beyond  the  stage  in  development  reached  by 
most  of  his  pupils.    He  can  not  well  resign  without 
injustice  to  himself  and  to  those  who  have  appointed 
him.     He  may  honestly  think  it  better  that  the 
studies  should  not  be  taught  at  all,  than  that  they 
should  be  taught  by  such  a  teacher  to  such  pupils. 
But  he  has  no  influence  to  bring  about  a  change 
in  this  matter.     What  in  such  a  case  shall  the 
teacher  do,  who  takes  the  point  of  view  set  up  by 
practical  philosophy  for  the  discharge  of  his  office 
in  a  dutiful  way  ?    This  is  often  a  hard  question  to 
answer.     If  his  pupils  are  rather  mature,  he  may 
somewhat  frankly  pursue  the  study  as  their  fellow 
pupil— going  a  little  ahead  of  them,  but  far  enough 
to  be  a  helpful  guide.    If  they  are  too  young  and 
immature  for  the  successful  pursuit  of  the  franker 
method,  and  can  be  taught  at  all  only  by  a  sort  of 
assumption  of  authority,  the  teacher  must  do  the 
best  he  can  to  grow  himself  in  the  required  knowl- 
edge and  to  adapt  the  imparting  of  what  he  learns 
in  a  manner  adapted  to  their  condition  of  ignor- 
ance.    I  suppose  it  is  impossible  for  the  teacher 
wholly  to  avoid,  with  a  certain  intent  which  can 
not  be  condemned  as  malicious,  deliberately  mak- 
ing the  impression  upon  his  pupils  that  he  does 
know  certain  things  which  in  reality  he  does  not 


82      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

know;  and  which,  perhaps,  nobody  knows.  With 
advanced  pupils  he  can  keep  on  giving  and  acquir- 
ing evidence,  and  stating  degrees  of  evidence  and 
of  probability;  but  with  children  he  can  not  teach 
in  that  way. 

It  is  a  comfort,  then,  to  mention  a  risk  which  is 
the  opposite  of  that  to  which  I  have  just  been  call- 
ing your  attention.  For  there  is  such  a  risk ;  and  it 
is  well  for  us  to  bear  it  in  mind.  This  is  the  risk 
of  under-estimating  the  pupil's  capacity  for  devel- 
oping, as  respects  the  different  forms  of  knowledge 
and  science,  if  teaching  skilfully  adapted  to  his 
present  stage  of  development  can  be  secured.  Talk- 
ing down  to  children  is,  on  the  whole,  a  little  worse 
than  talking  up  to  children.  How  often  do  we  hear 
of  children,  not  at  all  above  the  average  brightness 
or  culture  of  others  of  th«ir  own  age,  who  are  dis- 
gusted rather  than  instructed,  by  the  drivel  to 
which  they  are  subjected  by  the  kindergartners 
set  over  them.  The  wisdom  of  Aristotle  is  not  too 
great  for  the  teacher  of  young  children.  And  some 
of  Aristotle's  wisdom  can  be  taken  in,  if  properly 
adapted,  by  young  children. 

What  is  true  of  subjects  is  also  true  of  methods 
of  education.  The  methods  of  teaching  employed 
must  take  into  account  the  stage  of  development 
reached  by  both  teacher  and  pupil.  To  choose,  and 
to  put  into  successful  practical  operation,  the  right 
methods  of  teaching,  for  each  subject  and  for  each 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  83 

class,  makes  the  most  severe  demands  upon  the  expe- 
rience and  tact  of  the  teacher.  Different  subjects 
require  different  methods;  and  so  do  different 
classes  of  pupils,  with  their  differences  in  age,  apti- 
tude, and  culture.  Different  teachers  succeed  best, 
even  in  the  same  subjects  and  with  the  same  classes, 
by  the  use  of  different  methods.  Oral  instruction 
is  better  in  one  case;  silent  study,  in  other  cases. 
In  some  subjects,  as  taught  by  some  persons,  the 
nearly  exclusive  use  of  text-book  must  be  relied 
upon  to  do  what  is  better  done  in  other  cases,  either 
by  a  combination  of  text-book  and  quiz,  or  largely 
by  the  method  of  lecturing  or  holding  of  semi- 
naries. So  pertinent  and  far-reaching  is  the  appli- 
cation of  this  principle  that  the  method  of  teaching 
must  take  account  of  the  development  of  both 
teacher  and  pupil. 

The  system  of  public  education  which  will  be 
adapted  to  the  most  perfect  success  in  preparing  the 
citizens  of  both  sexes  for  their  place  in  their  differ- 
ent spheres  of  the  national  life  must  be  carried  on 
in  accordance  with  the  principle  we  are  now  consid- 
ering: All  knowledge  is  subject  to  development. 
This  principle  fixes  with  a  certain  degree  of  perma- 
nency the  subjects  and  the  methods  of  education 
which  belong  to  the  different  ages,  conditions  of 
health  and  social  position,  and  corresponding  stages 
in  development,  of  the  persons  who  are  undergoing 
the  process  of  education.    Ancestral,  sexual,  and 


84      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

social,  as  well  as  more  individual  differences, 
always  do,  and  always  will,  operate  to  give  condi- 
tions to  the  growth,  both  physical  and  mental,  of 
the  multitude  of  children  and  youth  educated  in 
our  public  schools.  To  a  certain  extent,  especially 
in  the  primary  stages  of  their  development,  they 
must  all  be  educated  together.  This  means  that  the 
same  subjects,  the  same  methods,  the  same  teachers, 
and  the  same  text-books,  must  serve  for  all  who  are 
in  the  same  grade  or  the  same  classroom.  The 
assumption  is  that  all  are  to  be  treated  as  tho  they 
had  already  reached  about  the  same  stage  in  the 
growth  of  intellect,  and  in  the  susceptibility  for 
further  growth,  if  given  the  same  opportunities  and 
treated  with  the  same  kind  of  culture.  But  the 
assumption  is,  of  course,  never  more  than  very 
partially  true.  The  rough  expedient  is,  then,  to 
adapt  the  subjects  and  the  methods  to  the  average, 
to  hold  back  the  backward  and  compel  them  to  go 
over  again  what  we  euphemeously  call  **the  same 
grade'*;  and,  perhaps,  if  there  is  room  in  the  grade 
above,  to  advance  to  it  the  brighter  ones,  somewhat 
prematurely.  But  now  we  are  beginning  to  see 
that  the  dull  and  backward  ones  ought  to  have  some 
special  form  of  culture,  which  shall  be  adapted  to 
their  capacity  for  development ;  that  it  may  be 
well  to  recognize  differences  in  the  prospective  call- 
ings and  so-called  social  position  of  those  who  are  in 
process  of  education— in  a  word,  to  arrange  for 


TUE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  85 

their  development  so  as  to  fit  it  to  life ;  that  differ- 
ent special  capacities  and  unusual  talents  ought 
somehow  to  have  provision  made  for  their  special 
culture;  and  that  when  sexual  differences  begin  to 
show  their  more  obvious  influence,  provision  ought 
to  be  made  in  the  educative  process,  for  recogniz- 
ing these  differences.  All  this,  those  who  control 
the  system  of  public  education  in  the  country  have, 
as  yet,  recognized  in  only  a  very  imperfect  and 
hesitating  way.  But  they  are  already  seeing  the 
outlines  of  the  difficult  problem  which  is  involved  in 
the  effort  to  combine  what  is  relatively  permanent 
with  what  is  always  changing,  under  the  physical, 
social,  and  financial  conditions  that  limit  our  edu- 
cational system. 

The  same  principle  of  the  developmental  char- 
acter of  all  human  knowledge  necessitates  the  un- 
ceasing effort  at  improvement  in  our  methods,  and 
in  our  entire  system  of  education.  As  you  know 
perfectly  well:  The  entire  system  of  education  in 
this  country,  from  nursery  and  kindergarten  to  the 
graduate  and  professional  schools,  is  being  sub- 
jected to  the  most  unsparing  criticism.  It  has  also 
been  subjected  to  such  rapid,  and  often  ill-consid- 
ered changes,  that  it  has  fallen  into  a  somewhat 
unorganized  and,  in  spots,  almost  chaotic  condition. 
Doubtless,  something  of  this  disquieting  sort  was 
made  inevitable  by  the  wonderful  development  of 
the  world's  knowledge,  especially  in  the  form  of 


86      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  positive  and  historical  sciences,  during  the  last 
one  hundred  years.  We  know  of  more  undisclosed 
secrets  of  nature,  of  the  human  soul,  and  the  past 
history  of  the  race,  than  were  ever  dreamed  of 
before.  The  sphere  of  the  unknown  seems  larger 
than  ever  before.  But  there  has  also  been  a  great 
increase  in  the  comprehensiveness,  clearness,  and 
accuracy  of  human  knowledge.  How  to  get  the 
most  available  of  this  new  and  rapidly  growing 
knowledge  into  our  modern  system  of  education  is 
a  most  puzzling  practical  problem. 

It  is  not  my  present  purpose  to  take  part  in  any 
of  the  critical  discussion  to  which  reference  has 
just  been  made.  But  I  wish  again  to  call  your 
attention  to  the  rules  for  practise  which  follow 
from  the  principles  I  have  laid  down  as  to  the 
nature  of  knowledge,  and  as  to  the  teacher's  func- 
tion in  the  imparting  of  knowledge.  Without  stir- 
ring the  learner's  mind  to  an  interested  and  prop- 
erly directed  activity,  no  knowledge  of  any  sort 
can  be  imparted  or  acquired ;  and  without  adapting 
our  subjects  and  our  methods  to  the  conditions 
which  inexorably  limit  all  human  development,  no 
real  growth  of  knowledge  on  the  pupil's  part  can 
possibly  take  place.  In  these  respects,  the  new 
has  no  superiority  to  the  old.  Nor  is  much  any 
better  than  little.  Indeed,  a  little  really  and  thor- 
oughly known,  is  far  better  than  smatterings  and 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  87 

surmises  and  vague  opinions  unbased  on  evidence, 
about  things  many  and  various. 

Many  of  the  rules  for  the  practical  guidance  of 
the  teacher  in  the  exercise  of  his  function  as  impart- 
ing knowledge,  are  essentially  the  same  when  they 
are  looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  established 
by  the  relativity  of  knowledge,  as  those  already 
reviewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the  developmental 
nature  of  all  knowledge.  But  there  is  one  rule,  or 
rather,  set  of  rules,  which  I  wish  to  make  a  little 
clearer  in  this  connection.  In  the  first  and  second 
lectures  I  laid  down  this  principle  as  at  the  foun- 
dation of  the  entire  course  of  lectures :  Teaching  is, 
essentially  considered,  a  species  of  intercourse 
between  two  persons.  In  the  imparting  of  knowl- 
edge the  principle  of  relativity  must  always  be 
recognized.  But  no  two  teachers  are  exactly  alike ; 
and  no  two  pupils  are  exactly  alike.  Every  pair, 
composed,  as  it  is,  of  pupil  and  teacher,  is  therefore, 
a  special  case.  From  this  it  follows  that  teachers 
can  not  reasonably  be  expected  all  to  follow  pre- 
cisely the  same  methods  in  teaching;  and  precisely 
the  same  methods  can  not  be  equally  successful 
with  all  pupils.  Progressive  adaptation  of  teacher 
and  pupil  is  approximately  the  best  solution  of  the 
very  difficult  problems  which  are  proposed  for  prac- 
tical testing  by  every  system  of  education. 

I  close  this  lecture  with  certain  suggestions 
toward  the  more  comfortable  and  truly  successful 


88      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

regulation  of  the  daily  conduct  of  the  classroom, 
in  the  attempt  to  secure  a  genuine  growth  of  knowl- 
edge as  the  result  of  our  teaching.  The  teacher  has 
unceasing  and  large  demands  made  upon  his 
patience,  with  himself  and  with  his  pupils— the 
former,  often  times,  still  more  than  the  latter.  The 
conscientious  teacher  is  constantly  called  upon  for 
large  drafts  of  patience,  hy  his  backward  or  refrac- 
tory pupils.  But  he  is  not  so  apt  to  remember  that 
he  owes  it  to  himself  to  be  patient  with  himself. 
In  the  growth  of  knowledge— on  the  teacher's  part, 
and  on  the  pupil's  part — time  must  be  allowed. 
Knowledge  is  a  slow  growth;  often  times,  it  is  an 
irregular  and  imperceptible  growth. 

The  teacher  must  cultivate  insight  into  personal 
character.  This  implies  self-knowledge— the  know- 
ing of  one's  strong  points  as  well  as  of  one's  weak 
points.  It  also  involves  as  much  as  possible  of 
acquaintance  with  the  individual  characteristics  of 
the  pupils  under  his  charge — the  knowing  of  them 
**one  by  one." 

The  teacher  must  strive  to  acquire  intelligence 
and  tact  with  regard  to  all  the  best  methods  of 
teaching.  But  here  we  must  always  remember  that 
method  is  not  something  that  can  be  learned  off- 
hand, as  it  were,  from  one  person  by  another.  The 
right  method  for  me  must  be  acquired  by  receiving 
suggestions  for  myself  and  by  experimenting  with 
them. 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  89 

Above  all,  it  is  a  matter  of  ethical  importance, 
that  the  teacher  should  retain  confidence  in  the 
early  and  persistent  appeal  to  the  higher  motives, 
such  as  fidelity,  obedience,  regard  for  an  honorable 
ambition,  affection,  and  the  sense  of  duty. 


LECTURE  V 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER: 
AS  TRAINING  FACULTY 

In  the  last  lecture  it  was  made  clear  that  both  the 
imparting  and  the  acquiring  of  knowledge  involve 
the  active  cooperation  of  all  the  mental  faculties. 
But  the  activity  of  these  so-called  faculties,  if 
rightly  directed  and  employed,  can  not  fail  to  result 
in  their  training.  The  development  of  knowledge, 
then,  is  possible  only  through  the  development  of 
all  the  mental  activities.  To  speak  of  the  teacher's 
function,  as  training  faculty,  in  a  manner  to  sug- 
gest that  the  theme  is  separable  from  the  thought 
of  teaching  as  essentially  the  imparting  of  knowl- 
edge, may  seem  superflous,  if  not  illogical.  And, 
indeed,  I  have  no  intention  of  implying  that  the 
growth  of  knowledge,  in  ourselves  or  in  others, 
can  be  secured  without  the  training  of  faculty ;  or 
that  these  two  functions  of  the  teacher  are  sepa- 
rable either  in  theory  or  in  practise.  On  the  other 
hand,  however,  the  two  are  not  precisely  the  same ; 
or,  at  any  rate,  they  do  not  represent  precisely  the 
same  aspects  of  the  complex  work  of  education. 
There  are  teachers,  and  there  are  pupils,  who  seem 
to  be  further  advanced  in  knowledge  than  they  are 

00 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  91 

in  what  we  call ' '  capacity. ' '  And  we  can  not  very 
well  help  recognizing  the  commonplace,  that  the 
faculties  involved  in  teaching  and  learning— such 
as  memory,  intellect,  imagination,  etc.— are  by  no 
means  always  developed  in  the  same  proportion. 

In  the  next  lecture  I  am  going  to  consider  the 
function  of  the  teacher,  as  the  formation  of  char- 
acter. This  function,  of  course,  includes  all  the 
others ;  for  the  formation  of  character  is  inseparable 
from  the  arousing  of  interest  in  worthy  pursuits, 
the  training  of  attention  and  of  all  the  mental 
activities  for  which  attention  is  the  pre-condition, 
and  the  resulting  growth  of  knowledge.  While, 
then,  all  these  so-called  "functions^*  of  the  profes- 
sional teacher  are  so  interdependent  that  they  can 
not  be  considered  or  practised  apart,  they  arrange 
themselves  quite  naturally  in  the  order  which  I 
have  given  to  them;  in  this  order  the  training  of 
faculty  stands  midway  between  the  imparting  of 
knowledge  and  the  forming  of  character. 

I  will  speak,  first,  of  the  work  of  the  teacher  in 
training  the  senses.  And  here  we  must  follow  our 
customary  plan  of  seeking  in  the  psychology  of 
the  subject  for  some  ground  on  which  to  place  the 
rules  that  are  to  serve  for  our  practical  guidance 
in  the  discharge  of  our  function  as  teachers.  Max- 
ims designed  for  the  control  of  conduct  ought 
always,  so  far  as  possible,  to  have  a  basis  of  science. 
There  are  certain  facts  and  laws  of  the  life  of  sen- 


92      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

sation,   with   which   every  teacher    ought   to    be 
acquainted. 

The  fundamental  fact  about  this  side  of  our  life 
and  its  development  is,  that  sensations  are  conscious 
processes,  primarily  dependent  upon  external  stim- 
uli. Both  of  the  facts  whose  statement  is  combined 
in  this  one  statement  of  the  fundamental  fact,  are 
equally  important.  But  one  of  them  is  quite  too 
often  either  overlooked,  or  supprest,  or  even 
thoroughly  perverted.  All  sensations  are  conscious 
processes.  To  speak  as  tho  sensations  could  be 
conveyed  along  the  nervous  tracts,  or  produced  by, 
or  located  in,  the  substance  of  the  brain,  is  to  mis- 
use a  figure  of  speech  which  is  as  truly  inappro- 
priate to  express  the  fundamental  facts  as  it  was 
when  the  ancient  forms  of  a  superstitious  nature- 
worship  identified  the  active  forces  of  the  flowing 
water  or  the  growing  tree  with  the  fairy  or  other 
spirit  that  inhabited  them.  Sensory  processes  take 
place  in  the  nervous  organism;  they  can  be  excited 
in  outward  parts  of  that  organism;  they  can  be 
traced  toward  or  away  from  the  nervous  centers; 
they  are  continued  in  a  modified  form  within  those 
centers,  and  are  moved  from  place  to  place  within 
the  centers ;  and  we  know  something,  but  not  nearly 
so  much  as  we  could  wish,  about  the  chemical  and 
physical  nature  and  laws  of  the  nervous  processes. 
But  when  you  come  to  talk  of  the  sensations  them- 
selves, you  are  dealing  with  mental  experiences; 


TEE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  93 

and  all  chemical  and  physical  descriptions  are 
utterly  inappropriate,  unless  understood  in  a  modi- 
fied and  largely  figurative  way.  What  we  teachers 
want  to  do  is  to  arouse  and  control  and  make  more 
truthful  and  more  accurate,  the  sensations  them- 
selves, as  primitive  processes  of  the  mental  life, 
and  as  the  indispensable  conditions  of  a  rich  and 
large  development  of  that  life. 

I  have  insisted  upon  this  fact— that  sensations  are 
processes  of  the  mind,  or  if  you  will,  of  the  spirit— 
in  order  to  enhance  our  estimate  of  the  value  and 
dignity  of  the  life  of  sensation,  and  of  the  necessity 
of  training  the  senses,  if  we  would  increase  knowl- 
edge and  develop  character.  I  wish  to  warn  you 
against  much  of  modern  physiology,  which  is  using 
language  and  putting  forth  theories  that  inevitably 
have  the  same  practical  effects  which  followed  from 
the  extremes  of  old-time  religious  doctrine.  To 
identify  the  life  of  sensation  with  the  sensuous,  or 
with  the  merely  mechanical,  prevents  us  from  lay- 
ing a  good  foundation  for  the  teacher's  work  in 
training  the  senses,  as  a  matter  of  high  import 
and  even  of  solemn  duty. 

But  how  shall  the  teacher  approach  the  secret 
mental  happenings,  in  order  to  subject  them  to 
direction  and  suitable  discipline  1  This  question,  of 
course,  turns  our  attention  at  once  to  the  other 
aspect  of  the  twofold  fundamental  fact.  Sensa- 
tions are  primarily  dependent  on  external  stim- 


94      THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Tili.  This  dependence  of  the  conscious  processes 
upon  external  stimuli  gives  the  teacher  a  certain 
limited  control  over  the  processes  themselves. 
Indeed,  when  we  think  of  the  matter  in  a  broad 
way  we  see  that,  barring  out  as  doubtful  all  tele- 
pathic and  so-called  spiritualistic  means  of  influ- 
ence, it  is  only  through  the  senses  that 
we  can  know  the  world  of  things  and  men,  or  take 
any  part  whatever  in  the  world's  social  intercourse. 
Sensations,  considered  as  mental  processes,  differ 
in  so-called  quantity,  and  in  quality  or  kind,  in 
the  manner  of  their  combination,  and  in  the  feel- 
ings and  intellectual  processes  which  accompany 
them.  The  function  of  education  is  to  control  and 
train  them  in  all  these  varied  respects.  In  our 
present  system  of  public  education,  the  means  defi- 
nitely provided,  and  intelligently  employed  for  the 
training  of  the  senses  seem  to  be  better  developed 
at  both  ends  of  the  educative  process  than  in  the 
middle.  The  kindergarten  makes  a  great  use  of 
natural  objects,  and  of  models  and  other  similar 
material,  in  order  to  present  the  object  as  it  really 
is,  to  the  senses,  and  to  train  the  senses  in  observing 
and  comprehending  different  classes  of  objects.  In 
college  and  university,  and  to  a  considerable  extent 
in  the  best  equipped  high-schools,  the  plentiful  use 
of  blackboard  and  of  apparatus  and  of  prepared 
objects,  gives  recognition  to  the  value  of  this  side 
of  education.    But  when  in  Switzerland,  for  exam- 


TBE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  95 

pie,  one  frequently  comes  across  bands  of  public 
school  children,  transported  at  the  public  expense 
and  conducted  by  their  teachers,  engaged  in  the 
study  of  the  topography,  the  physical  geography, 
the  flora  and  fauna,  and  the  history,  of  large  sec- 
tions of  their  native  land,  one  learns  from  observa- 
tion how  much  behind  some  of  the  other  nations  the 
United  States  still  is,  in  certain  important  fea- 
tures of  the  system  of  public  education. 

One  in'teresting  conclusion  follows  from  thig 
view  of  the  nature  of  the  life  of  sensation,  and  of 
the  conditions  otf  its  successful  development.  The 
development  of  the  senses  is  in  every  case  an  indi- 
vidual affair.  To  state  the  same  truth  from  the 
reverse  point  of  view:  The  development  of  any 
individuars  life  of  sense  experience— its  wealth,  its 
refinement,  its  practical  usefulness— can  not  be 
considered  as  a  fixed  and  unalterable  endowment. 
It  is  rather,  something  constantly  open  to  influ- 
ences ;  something  that  admits  of  constant  improve- 
ment, and  stands  in  need  of  constant  training.  The 
peculiar  species  of  personal  intercourse  in  which 
the  work  of  the  teacher  consists,  enables  him  to 
become  the  creator  and  the  cultivator  of  a  world 
of  sense  experience  that,  but  for  his  influence, 
would  never  exist.  It  is  true  that  different  persons 
are  bom  with  such  different  characteristics  of  the 
nervous  mechanism  concerned  in  sensation  that  they 
can  never  all  attain  the  same  degree  of  sensitiveness 


96      TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

or  of  accuracy  to  their  responses  to  external  stimuli. 
In  a  word,  all  can  have  by  no  means  the  same 
native  educability  of  the  life  of  sensation.  More- 
over, there  are  many  deficiences  of  the  sensory 
organs,  both  external  and  central,  which  hamper 
or  prevent  the  development  of  some  one  or  more 
of  the  special  senses  of  certain  individuals.  In 
many  such  cases,  the  help  of  the  surgeon  or  the 
physician  can  be  called  in,  and  great  or  total  relief 
obtained.  For  example,  there  are  the  preventive 
measures  which  may  be  employed  at  the  birth  of 
the  child  to  diminish  the  distressing  amount  of 
opthalmia.  There  are  those  well-known  surgical 
operations  for  the  cure  of  certain  mal-adjustments 
of  the  eye,  which  either  prevent  the  child  from 
being  taught  with  any  satisfactory  result,  or  which 
greatly  diminish  or  obscure  the  success  of  the 
most  conscientious  teacher.  But  over  and  beyond 
all  such  considerations  lies  the  one  encouraging  fact 
that,  in  every  not  wholly  hopeless  case— and  few 
cases  are  wholly  hopeless— the  teacher  has  it  to  say, 
more  than  anyone  else,  whether  that  particular 
child  shall  develop  or  not,  the  power  of  an  accurate, 
comprehensive,  varied,  and  pleasure-giving  use  of 
the  senses,  in  the  domains  of  science,  art,  and  the 
life  of  social  intercourse.  For,  I  repeat,  such  a 
use  of  the  senses  can  be  gained  only  through  the 
process  of  education.  All  eyes  do  not  see  the  same 
things;  nor  all  ^ars  hear  the  same  things.     The 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  97 

oculist,  in  case  of  one  kind  of  deficiency,  may  be 
of  help ;  the  aurist,  in  the  other  kind  of  deficiency. 
But  the  teacher  can  help  in  all  cases.  It  is  scarcely 
too  much  to  say  that  education  creates  for  the  indi- 
vidual a  real  and  beautiful  world  of  sensory 
objects;  and  that,  without  education,  somehow 
obtained,  no  such  world  can  come  into  existence 
for  any  individual  mind. 

The  more  profound  truth  of  this  statement  ap- 
pears when  we  consider  the  relation  of  the  educa- 
tion of  the  senses  to  the  development  of  the  other 
faculties.  The  excitement,  variety,  and  method  in 
combination  of  the  senses,  determine  in  an  impor- 
tant way  the  growth  of  the  intelligence.  In  saying 
this,  we  recur  again  to  the  truth  which  was  so  much 
emphasized  when  speaking  of  the  essential  nature 
of  knowledge,  and  of  the  laws  which  regulate  its 
development.  Knowing  things  through  the  senses 
is  never  a  mere  process  of  absorbing  impressions 
borne  into  the  mind  from  without,  as  it  were; 
knowing  things  is,  the  rather,  discriminating  them 
through  the  senses  by  an  active  intellect.  Thus  the 
trained  use  of  the  senses  in  observing  sensible 
objects  is,  essentially  considered,  an  exercise  of  the 
intellect,  a  training  of  intelligence.  Nor  does  the 
result  of  such  exercise  stop  with  an  acquaintance 
merely  with  a  large  number  of  individual  objects, 
which  are  known  by  being  seen,  heard,  and  handled, 
as  tho  they  were  separate   objects  and  bore  no 


98,     TEE  TEAOHBM'S  PBACTIOAJj  PHILOSOPHT 

systematic  and  vital  relation  to  each  other.  An 
intelligent  and  appreciative  use  of  the  senses  upon 
natural  objects  is  impossible  for  any  length  of  time, 
without  its  begetting  a  growth  in  the  knowledge  of, 
and  the  sympathy  with,  Nature  as  a  great  and 
beautiful  system  of  things.  This  bewildering  mul- 
titude of  things,  the  mind  learns  to  grasp  as  an 
orderly  Whole;  and  thus  to  learn  the  meaning  of 
such  words  as  ''Universe^*  and  **  Cosmos ''—Uni- 
verse, as  revealing  to  the  cultured  intellect,  through 
the  trained  senses,  a  wonderful  unity  underlying 
its  seeming  diversity,  and  cosmos,  as  opposed  to 
chaos,  and  perfect  in  arrangement.  And  when  this 
conception  of  the  totality  of  visible,  audible,  and 
tangible  things,  is  reached,  the  higher  sentiments 
are  awakened  and  cultivated.  All  life  is  made  to 
appear  nobler  and  richer,  and  especially  all  human 
life;  because  the  human  being  who  is  educated  in 
this  way,  can  look  upon  himself  and  upon  his  fel- 
lows, as  the  especially  favored  children  of  so  beau- 
tiful and  bounteous— albeit  so  stern,  a  mother. 

In  this  way,  the  cultivation  of  the  life  of  sen- 
sation, through  the  intelligent  and  skilful  ministra- 
tions of  the  teacher,  in  the  peculiar  form  of  inter- 
course which  is  open  between  him  and  his  pupil, 
may  have  a  most  uplifting  and  broadening  effect 
upon  the  character  of  both.  This  effect  it  may 
have;  this  effect  it  ought  to  have.  I  am  perfectly 
well  aware  that  the  teaching  of  the  so-called  natural 


rSB  FUIfOTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  99 

sciences  in  the  public  schools  and  higher  institu- 
tions of  learning,  in  this  country  at  the  present 
time,  largely,  perhaps  more  generally,  fails  of  hav- 
ing this,  its  legitimate  effect  upon  the  character  of 
the  pupil.  But  the  failure  is  chiefly  the  fault  of 
the  teachers  themselves.  For  my  part,  I  am  willing 
to  go  much  farther  than  I  have  already  gone.  The 
teaching  of  these  sciences  ought  to  be  so  conducted 
as  to  heighten  and  greaten  the  moral  and  religious 
ideals,  and  to  improve  the  moral  and  religious  life. 
But,  alas !  so  many  of  the  teachers  of  these  sciences 
either  do  not  believe  that  this  world  is  God's  world, 
or  else  are  afraid  to  convey  to  others  the  slightest 
hint  of  cherishing  such  a  belief,  that  the  moral  and 
religious  factors  in  the  development  of  character 
often  suffer  rather  than  gain  by  this  kind  of 
training  of  the  senses,  and  of  the  intelligence 
through  the  senses.  I  have  in  mind  one  of  our 
most  prominent  universities,  which  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  a  large  trust  fund  that  was  given  for 
the  express  purpose  of  founding  a  lectureship  to 
show  how  the  natural  sciences  testify  to  the  truth, 
that  this  world  is  indeed  God's  world,  has  spent 
much  money  to  employ  distinguished  ** scientists" 
from  this  country  and  over  seas;  but  not  a  single 
word  has  been  said  in  any  of  the  courses  of  lec- 
tures thus  obtained,  which  was  even  suggestive  of 
this  important  truth. 

So  important  do  I  regard  this  particular  part  of 


100    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  teacher's  function  as  a  trainer  of  faculty  that  I 
wish,  before  leaving  the  subject,  to  pass  briefly  in 
review  the  lessons  for  the  teacher  which  I  have 
already  tried  to  establish  upon  a  sound  psycholog- 
ical basis.  In  what  is  called  perception  (or  to  bor- 
row from  the  Germans  a  word  which  has  become 
pretty  thoroughly  domesticated  among  certain  writ- 
ers on  pedagogy — '* Apperception"),  the  active  use 
of  the  intellect,  with  selective  attention  and  trained 
self-control,  is  necessarily  involved.  To  perceive 
things— in  an  exact,  clear,  comprehensive  way, 
their  association  in  classes,  and  the  laws  of  their 
interaction — this  is  at  least  one  entire  half  of  the 
mind's  work,  whether  the  use  of  the  mind  be  mainly 
directed  toward  the  attainment  of  science  or  toward 
the  immediate  conduct  of  the  practical  life.  In  the 
intelligent  and  skilful  exercise  of  his  function  as 
training  the  senses,  the  teacher  may  fit  the  mind  of 
the  pupil  to  do  this  work  well.  The  knowledge  and 
mastery  of  natural  forces,  the  knowledge  of  how 
to  use  things,  the  intelligent  grasp  on  the  concep- 
tion of  Nature  as  an  orderly  and  beautiful  whole, 
and  some  of  the  finest  and  most  ennobling  elements 
of  the  moral  and  the  religious  life,  can  be  gained 
only  in  this  way.  Such  education  lays  the  founda- 
tions of  science  and  of  art ;  and  it  leads  up  to  the 
reflective  acquaintance  with  those  truths  that  con- 
cern themselves  about  the  interpretation  of  Nature, 
and  the  more  ultimate  significance  of  her  mysterious 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  TEH  TEACEER  "  101 

ways.  The  avenue  to  seeing  otherwise  invisible 
things  may  be  opened  for  the  mind  of  the  pupil 
by  the  teacher 's  hand  in  the  training  of  the  pupil 's 
eyes  to  see  what  really  surrounds  him  on  every 
side.  And  to  show  the  opening  mind,  how  this 
world  is  God's  world,  and  how  God  has  through 
countless  ages  been  making,  and  is  still  making  this, 
his  world,  is  well  worth  learning  how  to  do. 

There  follows  upon  this,  in  the  psychological 
order  of  the  teacher's  function  as  the  appointed 
trainer  of  faculty,  the  training  of  Memory  and 
Imagination.  It  is  necessary,  then,  at  this  point 
to  consider  certain  facts  and  laws  that  have  to  do 
with  the  nature  and  the  development  of  these 
faculties.  And,  first  of  all  we  notice  as  something 
quite  fundamental,  that  the  process  common  to 
both  these  forms  of  the  ** reproductive  faculty"  is 
the  arising  in  consciousness  of  a  so-called  ^*  mental 
image.''  *' Bringing  back,"  as  we  say— quite  fig- 
uratively— the  image,  or  the  idea,  of  some  past 
experience  is  the  primary  form  of  activity,  on  the 
exercise  of  which  depends  the  continuity  of  the 
mental  life.  The  nature  of  this  mental  image, 
which  seems  to  be  what  it  really  is  not, 
and  the  whole  value  of  which  consists  in  its 
being  so  like  some  other  experience  as  to  be  able 
to  represent  it  faithfully,  and  yet  so  unlike  that 
same  experience  as  to  make  us  able  to  distinguish 
it  as  not  identical  with  that  experience,  gives  some 


102    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOaOPHT 

of  its  most  subtle  and  interesting  problems  to  the 
study  of  psychology.  Into  the  psychological  doc- 
trine of  the  mental  image  we  cannot,  of  course, 
enter  with  any  fulness  of  detail.  It  is  enough  for 
our  present  purposes  to  emphasize  these  two  truths, 
upon  which  the  teacher's  relation  to  the  training 
of  reproductive  faculty  chiefly  depends.  First: 
The  teacher  can  emphasize  and  direct  those  proc- 
esses of  observation  in  which  clear,  exact,  and  serv- 
iceable mental  images  have  their  origin.  And  sec- 
ond: he  can  do  much  to  determine  those  habitual 
modes  of  association  on  which  the  recall  of  the  men- 
tal image  depends.  The  formation  of  those  memory 
images  which  shall  truthfully  represent  to  us  our 
past  experiences  with  things,  with  ourselves,  and 
with  other  persons,  depends  chiefly  upon  the  char- 
acter of  the  observation  given  to  the  original  experi- 
ence. We  can  not  clearly,  correctly,  and  compre- 
hensively, recall  the  visual  images  of  things  which 
we  have  not  seen  with  an  act  of  clear,  accurate, 
and  comprehensive  perception.  It  is  true,  indeed, 
that  some  things  and  some  events  stamp  their 
images  upon  our  memory  with  an  instantaneousness 
that  seems  to  allow  no  time  for  either  thought  or 
deliberate  attention,  and  with  a  vividness  that 
defies  our  attempts  to  forget  them  or  greatly  to 
control  their  powerful  influence.  But  this  fact  does 
not  controvert  or  destroy  the  evidence  from  another 
class  of  facts.    If  you  want  to  remember  anything 


TEE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  103 

well,  you  must  commit  it  to  memory  well.  The 
teacher,  in  a  way,  presides  over  the  pupil,  directing 
and  enforcing,  what  and  how  he  shall  commit  to 
memory.  He  can  not  get  hold  of  the  mechanism  in 
the  successful  working  of  which  a  true  and  lasting 
and  serviceable  commitment  to  memory  consists.  His 
work  is  more  subtle  and  less  immediate  here  than  in 
the  training  of  the  senses.  He  can  say,  *'Look  at 
this'^  *' Listen  to  that";  *'Feel  of  this'';  *' Study 
that";  but  when  he  says,  ** Commit  to  memory 
this  or  that, "  he  is  giving  a  command  which  can  be 
realized  in  no  simple  and  direct  way. 

We  all  know — and  sometimes  our  knowledge  on 
this  point  is  gained  by  very  awkward  and  embar- 
rassing experiences— that  committing  things  well 
to  memory  does  not  by  any  means  always  secure 
their  prompt  and  appropriate  recall.  We  remem- 
ber things  when  we  neither  need  nor  want  to 
remember  them ;  and  often,  when  we  most  need  and 
want  to  remember  those  same  things,  we  can  not 
recall  them  at  all.  Nothing  that  the  teacher  can 
do  for  himself  or  for  his  pupils  can  wholly  cure 
this  strange  freakishness  of  the  power  of  recall 
over  what  has  been  well  committed  to  memory. 
And  yet,  here  again,  the  teacher  can  do  something 
toward  cultivating  in  the  pupil  such  habits  of 
association  as  are  the  best  safeguards  against  the 
vagaries  and  stoppages  in  the  power  of  prompt, 
timely,  and  serviceable  recollection. 


104    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

When  we  remember  the  general  principle  of  the 
functional  unity  of  the  mind,  and  the  interdepend- 
ence of  all  its  so-called  faculties,  we  may  take  a 
larger  view  of  the  teacher's  function  in  the  train- 
ing of  memory  and  imagination.  Then,  on  the  one 
hand,  it  appears  to  be  our  work  to  develop  the 
power  of  mental  imagery  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
secure  a  prompt  and  accurate  memory,  and  a  lively 
and  productive  imagination  without  sacrificing 
trueness  and  breadth  of  judgment;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  develop  judgment,  in  respect  of 
accuracy  and  breadfh,  in  a  manner  not  to  cramp 
unduly  the  artistic  impulses  and  creative  activity 
of  the  imagination. 

Probably  no  other  matter  within  the  general  field 
of  pedagogy  has  been  more  thoroughly  worked  over 
in  the  search  for  helpful  practical  suggestions  to 
the  teacher,  than  the  training  of  the  memory.  This 
is  partly  due  to  its  importance,  and  partly  to  the 
comparative  ease  with  which  a  sort  of  experimental 
and  statistical  investigation  into  the  facts  and 
laws  of  memory  can  be  carried  on.  I  shall  make 
no  attempt  to  review  the  subject  with  any  detail. 
In  my  various  works  on  psychology  I  have  shown 
that  the  laws  of  the  process  called  ' '  The  Association 
of  Ideas''  may  be  summed  up  under  the  principle 
of  contiguity  in  the  unity  of  consciousness.  This 
principle  implies  in  a  general  way  that  impressions 
are  recalled  together,  which  have  originally  been 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  105 

made  together,  but  in  dependence  upon  the  inten- 
sity, frequency,  nearness  in  time,  emotional  accom- 
paniment, and  constitutional  or  acquired  tend- 
encies of  the  individual  mind.  So  nearly  universal 
and  so  influential  in  the  entire  process  of  education 
are  these  laws  of  the  association  of  ideas,  that  it 
becomes  a  dutiful  part  of  the  teacher  *s  professional 
equipment  to  form  some  intimate  acquaintance  with 
them.  As  bearing  on  the  teacher  ^s  conduct  of  the 
work  of  the  classroom,  I  make  the  following  sug- 
gestions. 

In  the  attempt  to  educate  the  spontaneous  mem- 
mory  there  are  three  important  cautions  which  it  is 
well  to  bear  constantly  in  mind.  One  of  these  cau- 
tions warns  us  against  overtaxing  the  memory. 
There  are  natural  limitations  to  this  faculty.  All 
children  can  not  be  taught  to  remember  equally 
many  things,  or  to  remember  anything  equally 
quickly  or  well  To  avoid  overtaxing,  the  various 
expedients  of  frequent  repetition  without  prolonged 
strain,  simplicity  of  the  object  combined  with 
variety  to  the  points  of  view  from  which  the  same 
object  is  presented,  multiplication  of  references, 
so  as  to  tie  it  up  with  many  associations,  etc.,  etc., 
may  be  employed.  But  not  even  in  this  way  shall 
we  succeed  in  greatly  altering  the  important  nat- 
ural differences  of  capacity. 

Care  should  be  taken,  on  the  other  hand,  not  to 
tie  up  the  ideas,  so  to  say,  with  incongruous  asso- 


106    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

ciations  so  that  they  can  not  afterward  be  set  free 
for  their  higher  and  more  logical  uses.  In  this  way 
we  may  get  our  pupils  into  the  condition  of  the 
scholar  who  could  never  recall  the  things  he  had 
learned  while  apprentice  to  a  hatter,  without  the 
smell  of  glue  being  associated  with  the  process  of 
recall;  or  the  learned  rabbi  who,  whenever  he 
recalled  certain  passages  from  the  Talmud,  saw 
passing  before  the  mind's  eye  the  images  of  the 
fences  by  which  he  had  been  running  when,  in  his 
youth,  he  committed  them  to  memory.  There  is 
danger  of  this  sort  in  all  the  much  advertised  arti- 
ficial schemes  for  cultivating  memory.  And  there 
is,  also,  as  we  all  know,  the  danger  of  overloading 
the  spontaneous  memory.  The  difficulty  and  embar- 
rassment of  remembering  too  much  of  petty  and 
disagreeable  and  useless  details,  that  would  bet- 
ter be  forgotten,  are  often  as  great  as  the  difficulty 
and  embarrassment  of  forgetfulness.  It  is  said  of 
the  great  philosopher  Kant,  that  after  parting  with 
an  old  servant  who  had  at  last  become  intolerable, 
he  recorded  in  his  dairy  this  significant  exhorta- 
tion :  *  *  Remember  to  forget  Lampe. ' ' 

But  the  teacher's  function  in  training  the  faculty 
of  ready  and  accurate  recall  should  be  subordinated 
to  his  service  in  training  the  higher  faculty  of 
recognitive  memory,  or  memory  as  a  form  of  knowl- 
edge. Such  training  involves  the  awakening  and 
cultivation  of  judgment  and  the  creatiye  imagina- 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  107 

tion.  The  cultivation  of  a  sound  and  accurate 
memory  is  also  related  to  the  arousing  and  develop- 
ment of  conscience,  or  moral  consciousness.  We 
have  lately  been  made  very  familiar  with  the  mem- 
ory of  the  rascal  on  the  witness-stand,  who  has 
forgotten  everything  which  he  does  not  wish  to 
remember;  and  who  remembers  in  a  partial  and 
crooked  way,  everything  which  he  does  wish  to 
remember.  It  is  the  testimony  of  our  lawyers  and 
judges  all  over  the  land,  that  perjury  is  the  most 
frequent  of  crimes;  and  that  it  generally  goes,  not 
unrecognized,  but  unpunished.  Parents  and  teach- 
ers, who  are  observing  and  conscientious,  know 
perfectly  well  that  the  amount  of  falsehood  through 
haste  and  inattention,  as  well  as  of  deliberate  lying, 
amongst  the  children  and  youth  of  the  land,  at 
home  and  in  school,  is  something  positively  shock- 
ing. Now  the  foundations  for  something  better 
than  this  can  be  laid  in  the  schoolroom;  altho  I 
grant  that  the  task  is  difficult,  and  sometimes  seems 
discouraging.  The  laying  of  these  foundations  con- 
sists in  part,  but  not  wholly,  in  the  cultivation  of 
a  conscientious  use  of  the  faculty  of  memory.  And 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  training  in  the 
intelligent  and  accurate  use  of  language  is  an  indis- 
pensable accompaniment  of  training  to  a  sound  and 
accurate  memory.  To  make  one's  self  and  one's 
pupils  careful  to  remember  correctly  and  to  state 
truljr  what  is  actually  remembered,  without  an 


108    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

undesirable  repression  of  imagination  and  of  free- 
dom in  speech,  is  a  delicate  task.  But  it  is  well 
worth  all  that  it  costs,  not  only  for  its  prospec- 
tive influence  on  science,  but  also  and  chiefly  for 
its  immediate  and  sure  and  continuous  influence  on 
the  moral  character  of  the  individual,  and  on  the 
welfare  of  a  social  condition  which  is  just  now 
suffering  more  from  the  habit  of  lying  than  from 
almost  any  other  one  cause. 

The  work  of  the  teacher,  especially  in  all  the 
earlier  stages  of  the  educative  process,  has  so  little 
to  do  with  what  is  sometimes  called  ** abstract''  or 
*'pure"  thinking,  and  so  much  has  already  been 
said  as  to  the  development  of  this  faculty  in  con- 
nection with  all  the  more  concrete  and  definite 
methods  of  education  dependent  upon  the  nature 
of  knowledge,  and  of  the  special  form  of  the  teach- 
er's personal  intercourse  with  the  pupil,  that  the 
training  of  the  intellect  would  seem  to  require  in 
this  connection  only  a  very  brief  treatment.  Intel- 
lect is  trained,  whenever  the  senses  are  trained, 
whenever  spontaneous  or  recognitive  memory  is 
trained,  whenever  knowledge  is  imparted  or  ac- 
quired ;  indeed,  whenever  the  feeling  of  interest  in 
any  object  is  awakened,  and  the  selective  attention 
directed  toward  that  object.  A  few  suggestions, 
however,  of  a  more  particular  sort,  with  reference 
to  the  teacher's  function  as  a  trainer  of  the  intel- 
lect, will  fitly  close  this  lecture. 


TEE  FUl^CTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  109 

The  one  fundamental  form  of  the  mind's  activity 
which  enters  into  and  shapes  all  intellectual  life — 
that  which  may  be  called  primary  intellection — is 
active,  discriminating  consciousness.  Training  to 
discriminate,  then,  is  the  essential  beginning  proc- 
ess of  all  human  intelligence.  This  process  implies 
the  recognition  of  similarities  and  of  differences; 
it  lays  the  basis  for  the  more  elaborate  work  of  the 
mind  in  the  simpler  forms  of  analysis,  synthesis, 
generalization ;  and  later,  in  the  formation  of  con- 
ceptions, and  the  discovery  of  so-called  laws.  The 
teacher 's  means  of  control  over  this  activity  in  dis- 
crimination has  been  already  seen  to  consist  largely 
in  the  excitement  of  interest,  the  direction  of  atten- 
tion, and  the  experience  of  the  pleasures  and  pains 
that  follow  success  or  failure  in  the  work  of  dis- 
crimination. 

In  this  connection  we  are  also  to  notice  that  the 
growth  of  intellect  is  preeminently  the  growth  of 
mind — in  the  more  precise  meaning  of  the  latter 
word.  Therefore,  in  stddying  the  development  of 
the  intellectual  faculties  of  the  child,  we  can  not 
emphasize  too  much  the  dependence  of  intellectual 
growth  upon  the  training  of  all  the  mental  faculties. 
But  the  essential  form  of  mental  functioning 
through  which  the  growth  of  intellect  and  the 
development  of  science  comes  about  may  be  said  to 
consist  in  the  thinking  that  results  in  forming  judg- 
ments based  on  evidence.     And  thus,  the  knowing 


110    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

how  we  know,  is  the  form  of  knowing  which  comes 
latest,  but  is  the  crowning  result  of  a  good  educa- 
tion, on  its  more  purely  intellectual  side. 

This  last  remark  leads  me  naturally  to  speak 
of  those  stages  in  intellectual  development  which 
enable  us  in  our  training  of  the  mind  to  follow  the 
laws  of  its  natural  development.  Roughly  speak- 
ing, these  stages  may  be  divided  into  the  following 
three.  The  earliest  intellectual  training  is  acquired 
by  the  child  in  connection  with  the  gaining  of  a 
knowledge  of  its  bodily  organs  and  their  control, 
in  the  adjustment  of  the  child  ^s  body  to  other 
external  bodies;  and,  as  well,  of  the  more  obvious 
properties  and  relations  of  these  bodies  themselves. 

The  second  stage  in  intellectual  training  involves 
the  more  voluntary  exercises  of  discrimination  in 
the  formation  of  judgments  and  habits  of  conduct, 
with  reference  to  the  less  obvious  and  fundamental 
qualities  and  relations  of  objects— on  the  basis, 
chiefly,  of  concrete  examples.  The  third  stage  in 
the  training  of  the  intellect  is  chiefly  characterized 
by  the  formation  of  conceptual  judgments— partly 
on  the  basis  of  the  individual's  own  observation, 
but  chiefly  as  they  have  become  incorporated  in 
the  experience  of  the  race. 

We  might  speak  of  a  fourth  stage,  but  this  can 
be  reached  only  as  the  intellect  is  trained  to  inquire 
carefully  into  the  reasons  for  these  transmitted 
judgments;  and  so  becomes  self -trained  to  form 


THE  FVSOTWN  OF  THE  TEACHER  111 

judgments  of  its  own,  on  the  basis  of  prolonged 
examination  into  all  the  facts,  and  of  careful  and 
logical  reasoning.  But  few,  indeed,  make  any  great 
advances  into  this  stage  of  the  development  of  in- 
tellectual faculty;  and,  perhaps,  it  is  well  for  the 
solidarity  in  action  of  society  and  of  the  state,  that 
the  case  is  so. 


LECTURE  YI 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER: 
AS  FORMING  CHARACTER 

The  work  of  education,  whether  we  view  it  from 
the  point  of  standing  which  estimates  its  value  for 
the  individual,  or  from  that  which  surveys  its 
broader  relations  to  society  and  to  the  state,  cul- 
minates in  the  production  of  character.  But  this 
word  *' character''  is  fitted  to  cover  a  conception 
of  very  comprehensive  and  somewhat  shifty  nature. 
Character  can  not  be  built  without  using  all  the 
materials  which  enter  into  the  constitution  of  per- 
sonal life.  To  assist  in  its  building  is  the  highest 
and  most  comprehensive  and  difficult,  but  valuable 
kind  of  personal  intercourse.  In  treating  of  the 
teacher's  function  in  the  formation  of  the  pupil's 
character,  I  must,  therefore,  assume  your  consent, 
in  principle,  at  least,  to  much  which  has  been  said 
in  all  the  previous  lectures.  It  has  been  shown 
how  impossible  it  is  to  separate  between  the  work 
of  training  the  mental  faculties  and  the  imparting 
of  knowledge ;  and  that  the  imparting  of  knowledge 
can  not  take  place  without  exciting  interest,  guiding 
attention,  and  thus  arousing  and  directing  the 
mind's  own  activities.     In  the  same  manner,  the 

113 


TEE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  113 

mental  faculties  can  not  be  trained  without  the 
results  showing  themselves  in  the  formation  of 
character;  and,  conversely,  character  can  not  be 
formed  except  in  dependence  upon  trained 
faculties. 

Let  it  be  understood,  then,  that  there  is  no  break 
or  gap  between  this  lecture  and  the  last  lecture.  We 
shall  simply  continue  the  subject  of  the  teacher's 
work  as  a  trainer  of  mental  life,  and  carry  it  up 
into  those  more  complex  and  practically  effective 
forms  of  activity,  which  are  sometimes  called  **the 
higher  faculties.*'  For  the  teacher  should  aim  to 
reach  and  develop  the  higher  forms  of  imagination 
and  feeling,  and  the  so-called  Will.  In  speaking  of 
the  more  primitive  forms  of  mental  imagery,  I  once 
or  twice  used  the  word  *' impression. ' '  This  word 
emphasizes  the  passive  side  or  aspect  of  the  repro- 
ductive faculty.  Something  happens  in  the  out- 
side world,  or  there  is  some  experience  of  pain  or 
pleasure  arising  from  w:"  "  ,  which  is  so  intense 
in  itself,  or  which  awakens  so  much  of  interest  and 
attention  that  it  gets  stamped  upon  the  mind.  We 
seem  to  be  like  clay,  or  putty,  under  such  forceful 
stimuli  of  the  sensations  and  of  the  feelings  of 
pleasure  and  pain.  But  if  all  the  effects  of  our 
past  experiences  were  by  way  of  being  impressed, 
were  of  this  almost  purely  passive  sort,  we  could 
never  rise  above  the  lower  animals  in  knowledge. 


114    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHT 

we  could  never  attain  an;^  trace  of  a  truly  human 
character. 

The  first  process  in  the  cultivation  of  the  imagi- 
nation implies  what  has  sometimes  been  aptly  called 
*'the  freeing  of  the  ideas''  from  their  more  primi- 
tive and  lower  forms  of  association.  I  have  already 
pointed  out  the  fact  that  these  associations  are  gen- 
erally trivial  or  merely  conventional,  as  it  were — 
giving  us  little  or  no  insight  into  the  real  nature 
and  more  important  relations  of  things;  and  that 
they  are  not  infrequently  false  and  prejudicial  to 
genuine  mental  development.  We  do  not  wish  to 
continue  to  remember  or  to  imagine  things  pre- 
cisely as  we  at  first  learned  them.  The  freeing 
of  the  concrete  ideas  from  their  first  associationa 
results  in  the  production  of  those  more  general 
ideas,  or  conceptions,  that  answer  to  the  important 
aspects  and  relations  of  things,  and  to  the  principles 
of  right  living.  It  is  the  business  and  the  privilege 
of  the  teacher  to  assist  in  this  process  of  the  eman- 
cipation of  the  ideas. 

Few  subjects  in  psychology  have  been  more  hotly 
debated  than  the  nature  of  the  so-called  conception, 
as  a  veritable  product  of  conscious  mind.  The 
debate  has  been,  and  altho  it  has  lost  much  of  its 
old  vagueness,  still  is,  carried  over  into  philosophy 
in  a  manner  to  result  in  some  of  the  principal 
divisions  into  schools  of  philosophy.  I  can  not 
enter  into  the  discussion  of  the  nature  of  the  men- 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  115 

tal  image,  when  it  becomes  so  freed  from  concrete 
associations  of  a  particular  kind  as  to  entitle  it  to 
be  called  a  conception.  It  is  pretty  clear  to  me, 
however,  that  it  never  is  what  it  is  assumed  to  be 
by  treatises  on  ' '  pure  logic ' ' ;  but  that,  on  the  other 
hand,  those  who  deny  the  capacity  of  the  concept  to 
deal  successfully  with  the  most  general  laws  and 
relations,  and  with  the  loftiest  ideals  of  humanity, 
are  almost  equally  in  the  wrong.  But,  how  depend- 
ent this  faculty  of  the  imagination  is  on  education, 
and  how  it  varies  in  different  individuals  in  depend- 
ence upon  the  character  and  degree  of  their  edu- 
cation, I  had  a  rather  startling  bit  of  evidence,  in 
the  following  way.  When  lecturing  on  the  subject 
before  an  audience  of  such  wide  range  that  it 
included  one  of  the  most  celebrated  astronomers  in 
the  world  and  a  number  of  young  and  *' unsophis- 
ticated" girls,  I  undertook  to  test  the  matter  by 
springing  on  them  a  certain  word,  and  asking  them 
to  note  carefully  what  ideas  it  aroused  in  their 
minds.  The  word  was  ''Lion."  The  astromomer 
said  that  at  once  he  had  a  perfectly  clear  mental 
picture  of  the  constellation  Leo;  while  one  of  the 
younger  girls  could  report  no  idea  whatever,  but 
only  an  irresistible  tendency  to  shudder. 

Fortunately,  it  is  not  necessary  that  we  should 
take  sides  with  either  the  Idealists,  or  the  Nomi- 
nalists, or  the  Conceptualists,  in  order  to  discharge 
well  our  function  as  trainers  of  the  higher  forms  of 


116    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

imagination.  But  it  is  desirable  that  we  should 
have  some  adequate  knowledge  of  the  importance  to 
the  pupil  of  this  side  of  our  professional  work.  In 
its  interest,  therefore,  I  call  your  attention  to  these 
values  of  the  creative  imagination.  The  trained 
use  of  the  creative  imagination  is  necessary  for 
attaining  a  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  the  posi- 
tive sciences.  These  all  demand  the  strenuous  use 
of  this  faculty  for  their  appreciation  and  their  com- 
prehension. This  is,  of  course,  most  eminently  and 
obviously  true  only  of  the  supreme  generalizations 
of  the  positive  sciences.  For  example,  I  have  no 
hesitation  in  saying  that  the  modern  scientific  con- 
ception of  matter  makes  more  severe  demands  on 
the  imagination  than  were  ever  made  by  any  sys- 
tem of  theology  in  its  attempt  to  form  a  tenable 
conception  of  the  Divine  Being,  to  whom  religion 
looks,  through  figures  of  speech,  as  the  Creator  and 
Preserver  of  the  world.  Or  consider,  again,  the 
enormous  demands  made  upon  the  imagination  in 
the  effort  to  frame  some  adequate  picture  of  the 
immense  stretches  of  time  and  the  enormous  com- 
plexity of  changes  demanded  by  the  reigning  theory 
of  biological  evolution.  Or,  once  more,  how  weary 
is  the  trained  faculty,  of  the  non-expert  at  least, 
after  listening  for  a  single  hour  to  the  attempt  to 
set  forth,  even  with  the  most  liberal  and  skilful  use 
of  the  blackboard  and  all  other  available  means  of 
illustration,  the  modem  ideas  of  the  constitution  of 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  TEE  TEACHER  117 

matter.  But  it  is  not  in  these  high  things  simply,  to 
which  few  of  us,  and  still  fewer  of  our  pupils,  may 
ever  hope  to  attain,  that  some  knowledge  of  the 
physical  and  chemical  sciences  demands  a  trained 
imagination.  The  extensive,  but  still  too  limited, 
use  of  apparatus  in  the  modem  schoolroom  bears 
witness  to  the  same  increasing  demand.  The  child 
who  has  no  sufficient  training  of  this  faculty  can 
never  learn  what  the  world  about  him,  as  known  by 
science,  really  is. 

The  trained  imagination  is  also  necessary  for  the 
appreciation  and  the  productivity  of  the  arts.  This 
truth  is  so  obvious  and  so  universally  recognized, 
that  it  may  be  passed  by  with  a  simple  reference. 
It  recommends  and  warrants  the  effort,  which  is 
being  so  worthily  made,  to  provide  for  the  modem 
schoolroom  material  for  the  cultivation  of  the 
artistic  imagination,  and  to  exercise  the  children 
and  youth  of  the  land  in  the  attempt  to  produce 
with  their  own  hands  some  of  the  simpler  artistic 
forms.  It  has  been  said  by  way  of  contrasting  our 
own  country  with  the  one  that  is,  perhaps,  most 
thoroughly  trained  of  all  modern  nations  in  this 
use  of  the  imagination,  that  when  an  eagle  appears 
in  the  neighborhood,  every  American  boy  runs  for 
a  gun;  while,  under  similar  stimulus  in  Japan, 
every  boy  runs  for  a  pen  or  a  brush.  Perhaps  we 
shall  in  time  become  cultured  enough  to  take  delight 


118    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

in  studying  and  picturing  while  alive,  rather  than 
in  unnecessarily  killing,  the  lower  animals. 

But,  there  is  yet  higher  and  practically  more 
important  use  of  the  creative  imagination  than  any 
which  has  been  noticed  hitherto.  For  the  trained 
use  of  this  faculty  is  especially  demanded  for  con- 
structing the  moral  and  religious  ideals.  It  is  these 
ideals  of  conduct  and  of  the  Being  of  the  "World, 
which  most  powerfully  affect  the  development  of 
the  individual  and  of  society.  Indeed,  we  may 
say  that,  according  to  the  nature,  comprehensive- 
ness, and  living  energy  of  these  ideals,  the  direc- 
tion and  rapidity  of  moral  and  religious  develop- 
ment are  characterized. 

It  has  become  painfully  and  dangerously  preva- 
lent, of  late,  to  exalt  the  so-called  practical,  and  to 
decry  and  scorn  the  holding  and  the  pursuit  of 
ideals.  But,  there  can  be  no  practise  of  the  human 
sort,  without  the  powerful  influence  of  these  ideals ; 
and  there  can  be  no  intelligent  cultivation  of  either 
morals  or  religious  faith,  without  the  constant 
improvement  and  prevalence  of  these  ideals.  Sci- 
ence, art,  morality  and  religion,  all  alike  demand 
for  their  well-being  the  services  of  the  professional 
teacher  in  the  training  of  the  higher  uses  of  the 
imagination. 

We  see,  now,  that  the  imagination,  through  its 
activity  in  framing  ideals  and  exciting  the  appro- 
priate feelings  and  forms  of  conduct,  profoundly 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  119 

influences  the  formation  of  character.  But  how 
shall  the  teacher,  when  once  convinced  of  this 
truth,  attack  this  important  function?  How  can 
the  imagination  of  the  pupil,  in  its  higher  uses,  be 
brought  under  educative  influences  by  the  teacher  ? 
Successful  practise  answers  this  question  by  calling 
attention  to  these  four  principal  ways.  First :  The 
teacher  can,  within  certain  somewhat  movable 
limits,  prepare  the  environment  which  surrounds 
the  pupils  under  his  charge.  There  are  few  mate- 
rial conditions  so  barren  and  squalid  that  some- 
thing stimulating  to  this  faculty  cannot  be  intro- 
duced into  them.  And  there  is  always,  except  in 
the  most  crowded  districts  of  our  cities,  something 
of  natural  beauty  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  school- 
room. This  silent  but  constant  influence  of  the 
environment  upon  the  imagination  is  quite  too  often 
underestimated  or  even  totally  overlooked. 

Second:  The  teacher *s  own  example  is  not  the 
least  inspiring  of  the  influences  at  his  command  for 
the  formation  of  character  through  the  training  of 
the  imagination.  If  I  am  not  going  to  be  misunder- 
stood, I  will  say  unqualifiedly,  that  no  person  is  fit 
to  be  a  teacher  of  the  young  who  is  not  an  idealist, 
and  who  is  not  constantly  striving  to  shape  his  own 
conduct  and  character  better,  after  the  pattern  of 
consciously  cherished  ideals. 

Third :  The  stimulus  which  the  teacher  provides 
by  calling  attention  to,  and  dwelling  upon,  the  best 


120    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

examples,  in  nature,  history,  art,  and  in  society, 
may  be  a  most  effective  means  for  training  the 
imagination  so  as  to  secure  the  result  of  an  ennobled 
character.  In  Japan,  I  found  everywhere  the  most 
diligent  pains  taken  to  keep  before  the  minds  of  the 
young  the  patterns  of  what  was  best  and  most 
worthy  of  imitation  in  the  national  life  of  the 
country's  past  and  of  its  present. 

And,  finally,  in  the  later  stages  of  education,  the 
professional  teacher  can  do  much  toward  imbuing 
the  pupil 's  mind  with  the  knowledge  of  principles. 
And  principles,  whether  of  science,  or  art,  or  con- 
duet,  are  most  apt  to  be  conveyed  from  one  mind  to 
another,  when  they  are  vivified  with  a  warm  imagi- 
nation, and  proclaimed  with  a  reasonable  enthu- 
siasm. 

But  there  is  another  side  of  our  common  human 
nature,  on  the  culture  of  which  the  formation  of 
character  is  chiefly  dependent.  This  is  the  side  of 
the  emotions  and  sentiments,  the  lower  and  the 
higher  forms  of  feeling.  It  is,  therefore,  an  impor- 
tant part  of  the  teacher's  function  in  the  forming 
of  character,  to  assist  the  pupil  in  getting  his  appe- 
tites, passions,  and  affections,  under  control;  and 
in  inspiring  and  refining  the  sentiments  which 
accompany  and  strengthen  the  sense  of  duty,  the 
love  of  beauty,  and  the  desires  and  efforts  for  the 
social  welfare.  If  it  is  true  of  every  man  on  the 
intellectual  side,  that  **as  he  thinks,  so  is  he";  it  is 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  121 

equally  true  on  the  social  side  that  as  a  man  feels, 
so  is  he.  In  the  shaping  of  conduct  and  the  form- 
ing of  character,  both  sides  must  be  symetrically 
developed  in  order  to  make  the  perfect  man. 

A  few  words  regarding  the  psychological  nature 
of  feeling  in  general  will,  I  think,  make  more  intel- 
ligible what  will  be  said  afterward  by  way  of 
practical  suggestions  for  the  successful  discharge 
of  this  particular  function  of  the  teacher.  "What 
we  call  our  * 'feelings, ''  in  distinction  from  our 
knowledge  or  our  thoughts,  emphasizes  the  more 
individual  and  subjective  side  of  mental  life.  The 
very  nature  of  feeling  consists  in  its  being  felt. 
Hence,  our  feelings  are,  in  a  much  higher  degree 
than  our  thoughts  incommunicable  in  their  nature, 
flhey  are  our  very  own.  If  in  our  natural  yearning 
for  sympathy,  we  try  to  tell  others  what  our  sor- 
rows, joys,  fears,  hopes,  aspirations  and  motives 
really  are,  we  know  that  the  language  of  concep- 
tion and  reasoning  is  entirely  ineffectual,  unless  it 
can  arouse  similar  feelings  in  the  listener's  soul. 
It  is  impossible,  therefore,  to  train  the  emotions  and 
sentiments  by  the  methods  that  apply  in  mathe- 
matical demonstration,  or  physical  experimenta- 
tion, or  the  teaching  of  the  languages  and  history 
by  a  course  of  lecturing  or  of  reading  in  text-books. 

Another  characteristic  of  the  life  of  feeling  is 
its  indescribably  variable  nature.  It  is  peculiarly 
difficult  for  the  so-called  science  of  psychology  to 


122    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

classify,  as  well  as  to  describe  accurately,  the  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  emotions  and  sentiments.  In  spite 
of  this  indefinite  variability,  however,  all  forms  of 
feeling  have  certain  common  characteristics.  They 
all,  whenever  they  become  intense,  tend  to  master 
the  will  and  render  the  individual  subject  to  their 
control.  This  trait  is  emphasized  in  the  very  words 
by  which  we  designate  them.  They  are  *' passions, '* 
*' affections,''  ''disorders'';  they  will  subdue  or  en- 
slave us,  if  we  do  not  subdue  them.  All  this  sug- 
gests that  the  trainer  must  know  how  to  get  them 
under  the  control  of  reason  and  good  will. 

Still  another  characteristic  of  the  life  of  feeling  is 
the  great  interest  which  it  has  for  the  individual. 
Almost,  if  not  quite,  all  the  feelings  have  a  tinge, 
if  not  a  strong  infusion,  of  pleasure  or  of  pain. 
Without  entering  upon  the  somewhat  shallow 
debate  of  psychologists  as  to  whether  our  pleasure- 
pains  are  properly  to  be  called  feelings  or  *  *  tones  of 
feeling,"  or  whether  they  are  not  the  only  experi- 
ences which  should  go  by  the  name  feeling  at  all, 
we  know  that  a  considerable  portion  of  our  emo- 
tions and  sentiments  are,  in  fact,  either  painful  or 
pleasurable  enough  to  be  of  great  interest  to  our- 
selves and  to  our  social  environment.  This  fact 
brings  the  culture  of  the  feelings  into  the  closest 
relation  with  the  teacher's  work  of  arousing  inter- 
est, drawing  attention  to  certain  rather  than  other 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  123 

subjects,  and  so  imparting  knowledge  and  training 
the  mental  faculties. 

What  further  I  have  to  say  respecting  the  oppor- 
tunities afforded  for  the  culture  of  the  life  of  feel- 
ing by  that  peculiar  kind  of  personal  intercourse 
in  which  the  work  of  education  consists,  will  be 
facilitated,  if  I  at  once  divide  the  subject  into  two 
parts.  Roughly  speaking,  we  may  distinguish  the 
emotions  and  the  sentiments  as  two  kinds  of  feeling 
which  require  different,  and  sometimes  even 
opposed,  treatment  at  the  teacher's  hands.  The 
division  is  by  no  means  scientifically  exact;  and 
if  I  were  lecturing  on  the  psychology  of  feeling,  I 
should  think  it  necessary  to  explain  the  matter  at 
length.  But  for  our  practical  purposes  as  suggest- 
ing rules  of  conduct,  the  division  is  convenient. 

By  the  *' emotions'*  we  understand  those  experi- 
ences of  feeling  which  are  of  such  character,  and  so 
strong,  that  they  seem  to  impel  the  individual  to 
some  kind  of  immediate  action.  Emotions  are 
states  of  consciousness  which  move  us  toward  some 
sort  of  impulsive  conduct.  Their  effect  upon  the 
bodily  organs  of  movement  is  often  so  prompt  and 
powerful  that  the  felt  condition  of  these  organs 
becomes  an  important  part  of  the  emotion  itself. 
The  extreme  view,  that  the  whole  of  the  emotion 
consists  in  this  feeling  of  the  condition  of  the  motor 
organism— or,  to  put  the  case  in  a  taking  but  rather 
facetious  way— that  we  do  not  clinch  our  fists  and 


124    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

grit  our  teeth  because  we  are  angry,  but  that  we 
are  angry,  because  we  have  already  clinched  our 
fists  and  gritted  our  teeth— this  extreme  view,  I 
say,  need  not  be  discust.  It  has  been  thoroughly 
discredited  both  experimentally  and  by  the  direct 
testimony  of  consciousness.  But  in  all  cases  of 
strong  emotion  there  are  certain  physical  sensations 
mingled  in,  which  are  due  to  the  excitement  of  the 
bodily  organs  by  the  feeling.  This  more  definite 
sensation-element  I  have,  in  my  various  works  on 
psychology,  spoken  of  as  the  ''somatic  resonance." 
A  certain  confusion  and  hurrying  of  the  trains  of 
associated  ideas,  a  feeling  of  bewilderment  which 
we  tend  to  locate  somewhere  inside  the  head,  is  also 
a  characteristic  effect  of  the  rising  beyond  control 
of  any  strong  emotional  excitement.  This  state  of 
confusion  is  often  still  farther  complicated  and 
intensified  by  what  we  call  ''a  conflict  of  emotions.** 
Different  kinds  of  feeling,  of  differing  strengths- 
no  w  rising  and  now  falling— seem  struggling  for 
the  mastery.  In  anger,  for  example,  we  desire  to 
strike,  but  we  fear  the  consequences,  or  we  are 
moved  with  shame  at  our  lack  of  self-control.  In 
fear,  we  find  pride  struggling  to  overcome  fear. 
A  strong  sense  of  justice  contending  with  the  affec- 
tions of  love  and  pity,  forms  some  of  the  most  hard 
and  bitter  struggles  of  our  human  social  experi- 
ence. On  the  physiological  side,  therefore,  the  vio- 
lent emotions  give  token  of  a  sort  of  ** brain  storm** 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  US 

of  more  or  less  intensity  and  extent;  while  on  the 
side  of  consciousness,  we  know  them  as  a  sort  of 
temporary  upsetting  of  the  entire  flow  of  the 
mind^s  life. 

How  shall  the  teacher  deal  with  these  stronger 
and  more  obviously  sensational  forms  of  emotion — 
the  passions,  appetites,  and  other  outbursts  of  feel- 
ing, in  the  pupil,  so  far  as  they  come  under  his 
charge?  There  is  one  principle  which  he  must 
never  lose  out  of  his  mind,  as  applicable,  first  of  all, 
to  his  own  case,  and  then  to  the  case  of  others  also. 
The  principle  is  this :  While  the  emotions  move  to 
action  and  tend  to  control  the  will,  they  are  them- 
selves, in  turn,  under  the  control  of  the  will.  The 
existence  of  strong  natural  passions  is  by  no  means 
a  necessary  disadvantage  to  the  success  of  the  high- 
est aims  of  the  process  of  education,  whether  in  the 
teacher  or  in  the  pupil.  But  all  forms  of  emotion 
tend  to  wreck  the  individual  and  to  disorder  society 
if  they  are  not  brought  under  control.  The  teach- 
er's aim  is  not  to  suppress  wholly  or  to  eradicate 
the  emotions,  but  to  direct  and  discipline  them. 
This  we  must  do  for  ourselves,  if  we  are  going  to 
maintain  any  show  of  reason  in  the  attempt  to  do  it 
for  others. 

Both  in  ourselves  and  in  others,  the  control  of  the 
emotions  is  most  easily  exercised  in  two  ways.  I 
am  speaking  of  first  control,  as  it  were.  The  habit 
of  self-control  that  issues  in  a  refined  and  powerful 


126    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

personality  can  be  gained  only  through  years  of 
practise  under  the  influence  of  the  higher  and 
purer  forms  of  sentiment. 

One  of  the  two  most  effective  means  which  may 
be  employed  for  the  application  of  the  will  to  the 
immediate  control  of  strong  and  undesirable  forms 
of  emotional  excitement  is  to  be  found  in  the  indul- 
gence or  the  suppression  of  the  bodily  expression. 
Each  of  these  forms  of  emotion  is  supposed  to  have 
its  more  or  less  marked  form  of  effect  upon  the 
external  organs.  For  example,  there  is  the  clinch- 
ing of  the  fists  and  gritting  of  the  teeth,  in  anger, 
to  which  reference  has  just  been  made;  the  trem- 
bling of  the  limbs  and  tendency  to  run  away,  in 
fear;  the  hanging  of  the  head  and  tendency  of  the 
shoulders  to  collapse,  in  despair;  the  longing  to 
embrace,  in  love,  etc.,  etc.  If  the  will  is  firmly  and 
persistently  set  toward  the  removal  of  the  bodily 
basis,  which  not  only  expresses,  but  also  supports, 
the  peculiar  form  of  emotion  it  is  desired  to  bring 
under  control,  then  the  emotion  itself  can  not  long 
maintain  itself  at  a  high  pitch  of  intensity.  The 
mad  and  untamed  child  throws  itself  down  upon 
the  floor  and  proceeds  to  beat  it  with  fists  and  feet ; 
if  it  could  be  persuaded  to  stretch  itself  out  there 
and  lie  relaxed,  its  fit  of  temper  would  soon  sub- 
side. On  the  other  hand,  the  emotion  of  patriotism, 
or  of  admiration  for  the  hero  in  the  procession  or 
the  speaker  on  the  platform,  is  not  only  exprest, 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  127 

but  also  built  up,  on  a  basis  of  clapping  of  hands 
and  of  cheering.  Here  the  principle  of  imitation 
also  comes  into  play.  This  is  the  secret  of  the  trick 
of  what  the  French  call  Claque  to  start  appreciar 
tion  for  a  poor  play  in  the  theater.  In  somewhat 
the  same  way,  the  politically  professional  expert 
estimates  the  present  and  prospective  enthusiasm 
for  the  candidate  by  the  number  of  minutes  that 
his  partizans  can  keep  up  their  cheering.  If  it  is 
a  bad  and  undesirable  emotion,  take  out  from  under 
it  its  bodily  accompaniment;  if  it  is  a  good  and 
desirable  emotion,  stimulate  and  build  up  its  bodily 
basis.  These  are  valuable  suggestions  for  the 
teacher  in  his  efforts  at  forming  the  character  of 
his  pupils  through  the  control  of  their  emotions. 
The  other  most  effective  means  for  the  immediate 
control  of  the  emotions  is  to  be  found  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  attention  so  as  to  control  the  associated 
trains  of  ideas.  Nothing  can  be  shrewder  or  more 
psychologically  appropriate  than  such  exhortations 
as  ** Don't  mind  him,'*  if  he  has  done  something  to 
make  you  angry;  or,  ** Don't  think  about  it,"  if 
some  great  disappointment  has  recently  happened. 
How  often  have  I  admired  the  skill  with  which 
ignorant  mothers  and  nurses  remove  the  painful 
emotions  from  the  minds  of  children  by  directing 
the  attention  away  from  them.  But  it  must  never 
be  forgotten  that  even  the  child's  mind  cannot  be 
satisfied  with  vacancy  in  the  stead  of  a  recent  over- 


128    TBB  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

powering  state  of  feeling.  The  positive  direction  of 
the  mind  to  something  equally  interesting  gives 
scope  to  the  tact  of  the  teacher  in  this  form  of  con- 
trol over  the  emotions. 

Now,  since  all  the  normal  human  appetites, 
passions,  and  affections,  have  their  place  in  the 
development  of  the  individual  and  in  the  progress 
of  society,  all  of  them  are  to  be  cultivated  with  tact 
in  selection  and  with  a  sense  of  proportion.  Some- 
times the  pupil,  as  well  as  the  teacher,  should  get 
mad ;  and  sometimes  he  should  stand  in  fear ;  some- 
times his  pride  may  be  indulged,  tho  often  represt ; 
and  not  infrequently,  it  is  likely— at  any  rate  in 
some  cases— he  ought  to  be  made  ashamed  of  him- 
self. If  he  is  not  hungry  and  thirsty  several  times 
a  day,  and  if  the  vaguer  or  more  pronounced  mov- 
ings  of  the  feelings  of  sex  are  not  experienced  at 
a  certain  age,  then  the  pupil  is  not  a  healthy  and 
normal  human  being.  And  the  pupil  is  at  least  as 
sure  as  is  the  teacher  to  get  tired,  when  overworked 
and  occasionally  to  be  most  thoroughly  disgusted 
with  the  schoolroom  and  with  the  whole  dreary 
business  of  education.  I  have  always  felt  a  keen 
fellow-feeling  with  the  minister,  who  when  his  vaca- 
tion came,  kicked  up  his  heels  and  **  thanked  the 
Lord  that  he  hadn't  got  to  preach  or  pray  for  six 
weeks."  Nor  am  I  necessarily  less  sympathetic  with 
the  boy  who  sometimes  wishes  heartily  that  school 
were  over  so  that  he  could  get  to  his  game  of  base- 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  129 

ball;  or  that  Saturday  had  come,  so  that  he  could 
go  afishing. 

Into  this  complex  of  concurring  or  contending 
emotions,  that  are  motives  to  various  forms  of  con- 
duct, the  work  of  education  comes ;  and  it  attempts 
to  exercise  a  selective  influence,  to  favor  some  and 
to  discourage  others,  to  apportion  to  some  extent 
the  results  of  their  indulgence  and  repression ;  in  a 
word,  to  order  them  all,  under  the  control  of  reason, 
in  such  manner  as  to  cultivate  a  worthy  personal 
life,  and  produce  a  useful  member  of  the  social 
whole.  So  perplexing,  and  yet  so  important  is  the 
teacher's  function  in  the  forming  of  character  as 
dependent  upon  the  culture  of  the  emotions ! 

The  relation  of  the  work  of  education  to  the 
other  of  the  two  classes  of  feeling  into  which  I 
found  it  convenient  to  make  the  division  is  an  obvi- 
ous extension  of  the  principles  to  which  attention 
has  already  been  directed.  The  nature  of  a  so-called 
"Sentiment,"  altho  it  can  not  be  absolutely  dis- 
tinguished from  an  emotion,  differs  in  these  two 
respects,  chiefly:  A  sentiment  is  relatively  free 
from  that  mixture  of  bodily  sensations  which  char- 
acterizes an  emotion  or  a  passion ;  it  is,  in  general, 
the  mind's  response  to  some  idea  of  the  higher 
order,  or  to  some  of  the  ideals  of  the  mind's  con- 
struction. All  the  more  primitive  and  simpler 
forms  of  appetite  and  passion,  and  even  of  affec- 
tion, the  human  being  seems  to  share  with  the  most 


180    THE  TBAOEBW&  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

highly  developed  of  the  animals.  Many  of  these 
are  connected  with  the  development  of  the  organ- 
ism, and  with  the  normal  performances  of  animal 
functions  that  are  necessary  to  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  perpetuation  of  the  species.  Even 
some  of  the  forms  of  feeling  connected  with  the 
intellectual  development  of  man  have  their  pro- 
totypes or  resemblances  in  the  life  of  the  lower  ani- 
mals. Such  are  the  feeling  of  curiosity,  the  desire 
of  acquisitiveness,  a  certain  feeling  of  the  rights  of 
possession;  and,  especially,  as  bearing  on  the  life 
of  conduct,  a  considerable  outfit  of  the  various  feel- 
ings of  kinship  and  tribal  sympathy.  But  there  is 
much  less  evidence  that  any  of  the  animals  have 
any  experience  corresponding  to  that  connected,  in 
man^s  case,  with  the  unfolding  and  refinement  of 
the  so-called  sentiments  of  duty,  beauty,  and  the 
life  of  religion.  The  character  and  the  control  of 
these  higher  forms  of  feeling  over  the  lower  is  the 
determining  thing  in  the  formation  of  the  charac- 
ter of  the  individual  and  of  society. 

All  noble  and  pure  character  must  be  formed 
largely  under  the  influence  of  the  sentiments ;  and, 
more  especially,  of  such  sentiments  as  are  awakened 
by  the  more  important  and  nobler  social  relations, 
and  under  the  guidance  of  the  more  important  and 
purer  of  the  artistic,  moral,  and  religious  ideals. 
A  person  of  pure,  exalted,  and  truly  noble  senti- 


TEW  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACBER  131 

ments  is,  so  far  as  feeling  is  concerned,  a  person  of 
pure,  exalted,  and  noble  character. 

In  the  estimate  and,  especially,  in  the  practical 
cultivation  of  the  sentiments,  a  distinction  between 
sentiment  and  sentimentality  needs  constantly  to  be 
borne  in  mind.  For  there  are  certain  manifesta- 
tions of  the  forms  of  feeling,  that  are  in  themselves 
higher,  which  are  weakening  or  exaggerated.  Sym- 
pathy and  pity  are  fine  sentiments ;  but  the  former 
may  easily  become  maudlin,  and  the  latter  may  be 
felt  and  displayed  in  such  way  as  to  thwart  or  dis- 
gust the  equally  fine  sentiments  of  honor  or  of  jus- 
tice. It  is  such  sentiments  as  these— honor,  justice, 
loyalty,  reverence,  and  devotion  to  duty— which 
chiefly  signify  and  promote  genuineness  and 
strength  of  character.  Their  basic  qualities,  and 
primary  social  importance,  can  never  be  safely 
neglected  in  the  work  of  education.  Even  their 
exaggeration,  as  in  the  traditional  educational  sys- 
tem of  Japan,  is  more  productive  of  a  high  type  of 
manhood  and  womanhood,  than  is  a  certain  ten- 
dency to  excessive  sentimentality  which  has  shown 
itself  rather  prominently  in  this  country,  in  the 
most  recent  times.  It  is  well  to  form  Societies  for 
the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals,  Anti- Vivi- 
section Societies,  and  what  not,  of  similar  sort ;  but 
it  would  be  better  to  cultivate,  both  individually 
and  socially,  a  more  passionate  and  effective  senti- 
ment of  justice  in  our  courts  of  law,  a  higher  and 


132    TEE  TEACHEW8  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

more  effective  regard  for  honor  and  truthfulness 
in  business,  and  a  greater  reverence  toward  parents, 
elders,  and  those  distinguished  for  service  in  the 
church  and  in  the  state. 

Several  of  the  suggestions  already  made  with 
regard  to  the  teacher's  function  in  arousing  and 
training  the  emotions  apply,  with  an  added  force, 
to  his  work  in  the  interests  of  a  well-formed  char- 
acter, as  dependent  upon  the  cultivation  of  the 
higher  kinds  of  feeling,  the  so-called  sentiments. 
Only,  in  the  case  of  the  sentiments,  the  work  con- 
sists almost  none  at  all,  in  a  study  of  the  best  meth- 
ods of  their  repression.  It  consists  almost  wholly, 
on  the  contrary,  in  arousing  the  feelings  and  direct- 
ing them  to  the  appropriate  objects. 

For  the  awakening  of  the  sentiments  a  most  valu- 
able group  of  suggestions  follows  from  the  psycho- 
logically true  fact  of  experience,  that  even  the  appe- 
tites, passions,  and  lower  affections  of  human 
nature  may  be  so  cultured  as  to  take  on  the  form 
of  a  sentiment,  or  to  become  the  promoter  of  some 
form  of  sentiment.  Thus  the  natural  passion  of 
anger,  when  cultivated,  develops  into  the  sentiment 
of  justice;  indeed,  without  this  passion  of  anger, 
the  sentiment  would  be  a  cold  and  nerveless  thing 
—merely  an  ineffective  sort  of  idea.  So  the  passion 
of  jealousy  may  become  the  cultivated  sentiment 
which  safeguards  reputation  and  the  domestic  life. 

In  all  that  has  been  said  hitherto,  it  has  been 


THE  FUNCTION  OP  THE  TEACHER  133 

assumed  that  the  formation  of  character  is  depen- 
dent upon  the  training  of  the  will.  But  by  these 
words,  ^Hhe  Will/^  we  must  not  understand,  as 
seemed  formerly  to  be  implied  in  the  current  lan- 
guage of  psychology,  any  separate  faculty.  The 
rather,  are  we  to  understand  by  the  term,  at  least 
as  used  in  this  connection,  the  entire  active  side 
or  aspect,  of  human  nature.  To  will  rightly  and 
worthily  involves,  then,  the  connected  and  associ- 
ated growth  of  all  the  different  functions  of  the 
mental  life.  The  development  of  the  will  is  the 
development  of  the  Self.  And  this  is  the  end  of 
education,  so  far  as  the  individual  is  concerned. 
The  function  of  the  teacher  culminates  when  he 
trains  the  pupil  in  habits  of  right  choice.  The 
pupil  is  then  ready  to  be  handed  over  to  himself. 
How  much  complexity,  and  how  great  need  of 
the  nature  being  touched  and  influenced  at  many 
points,  there  is  in  this  educative  process,  we  may 
glimpse,  when  we  consider  what  are  the  factors 
involved  in  every  deliberate  choice.  These  are  (1) 
mental  representation  of  two  or  more  ends, 
regarded  as  dependent  on  human  action ;  (2)  excite- 
ment of  some  desire  or  sentiment,  which  appreci- 
ates these  ends  as  having  value;  (3)  deliberation, 
involving  the  estimate  of  these  ends,  and  of  the 
risks  and  difficulties  connected  with  their  attain- 
ment; (4)  decision,  or  the  bringing  of  the  delibera- 
tion to  a  close  by  a  so-called  deed  of  will;  (5)  the 


134    THE  TEACHER^a  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

release  of  motor  energy,  with  a  view  to  carrying 
out  the  decision,  or  *' executive  volition.*'  Think 
over  this  list  of  factors,  fellow  teachers,  and  con- 
sider at  how  many  points  and  in  how  many  ways, 
one  person  who  is  favorably  placed,  may  influence 
the  deliberate  choice  of  another. 

The  training  of  will  is,  therefore,  the  most  essen- 
tial thing  in  the  formation  of  character.  Funda- 
mentally considered,  this,  more  than  anything  else, 
is  what  we  understand  by  character — ^namely,  a 
Self  educated  into  habits  of  right  choice. 

The  method  and  stages  of  such  a  training  may 
readily  be  brought  into  connection  with  the  truths 
and  suggestions  which  have  occupied  us  in  all  the 
previous  lectures.  Good  habits  of  will  involve  the 
control  of  the  bodily  organs,  the  control  of  the 
emotions  and  passions,  the  control  of  the  attention 
and  the  associated  ideas  and  trains  of  thought. 
This  training  also  involves  the  eliciting  and  fixing 
of  the  purposes  upon  ideals— of  knowledge,  con- 
duct, art,  social  conditions,  etc.  And,  finally,  the 
training  of  good  will  involves  the  skilful  dealing 
with  different  forms  of  bad  will— such  as  impul- 
sive will,  obstinate  will,  and  hesitating  will. 

In  a  word,  I  may  sum  up,  in  closing,  this  portion 
of  an  attempt  at  a  teacher's  Practical  Philosophy, 
by  reminding  us  that  the  culminating  function  of 
the  professional  teacher  is  the  making  of  a  person, 
or  Self.    For  this  purpose,  the  teacher  is  placed  in 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  TEACHER  136 

somewhat  peculiar  relations  to  his  pupils,  of  a 

personal  sort.  Certain  somewhat  special  forms  of 
personal  intercourse  are  committed  to  him.  His 
position  has  its  advantages  and  its  disadvantages; 
but,  on  the  whole,  the  former  greatly  predominate 
over  the  latter.  And  by  the  skilful  and  conscien- 
tious discharge  of  his  manifold  functions,  he  may 
succeed  measurably  well  in  the  noblest  kind  of  man- 
ufacture; this  is  the  making  of  an  improved  kind 
of  personal  life. 


Part  II 
THE  EQUIPMENT  OF  THE  TEACHER 


LECTURE   VII 

THE  EQUIPMENT  OF  THE  TEACHER: 
AS  SELF-CULTIVATION 

That  the  professional  teacher  needs  some  special 
equipment  for  his  work,  is  a  statement  which  few, 
or  none,  would  be  found  ready  to  dispute.  Even 
the  ditcher  or  navvy  requires  to  learn  the  expert 
handling  of  spade  and  pickax.  The  artizan,  the 
tradesman,  the  skilled  laborer  in  any  kind  of 
enterprise  must  undergo  some  sort  of  apprentice- 
ship, in  order  that  he  may  know  how  to  handle  his 
tools,  but  more  especially,  in  order  that  he  may 
know  how  to  conduct  himself  under  the  conditions 
ordinary  to  his  form  of  employment;  and,  as  well, 
in  view  of  the  possible  conditions  arising  at  any 
time  of  the  emergencies  peculiar  to  it.  Those  whose 
business  it  is  to  deal  with  any  form  of  life,  and  to 
assist  in  its  cultivation  and  development  into 
higher  and  more  useful  and  beautiful  products, 
need  to  have  the  knowledge  of  an  expert  in  order 
to  assist  the  forces  of  nature  in  their  efforts  after 
a  more  perfect  result.  We  have,  then,  schools  for 
manual  training,  and  agricultural  and  horticul- 
tural schools;  and  in  Japan,  the  Government 
founds  fishery  institutes,  as  well  as  commercial 

139 


140    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

colleges.  But  a  particularly  long  and  elaborate 
course  of  education  is  supposed  to  be  indispensable 
for  equipping  the  individual  to  enter  upon  the 
practise  of  any  of  the  three  so-called  *' learned 
professions/'  The  very  words  indicate  the  fixed 
opinion  that  no  amount  of  native  tact  and  good 
sense,  however  coupled  with  desultory  and  un- 
directed reading,  suffices  to  equip  one  for  the 
practise  of  either  medicine  or  the  law,  or  for  the 
services  of  the  ministry. 

Now,  one  of  the  important  convictions  which  I 
am  endeavoring  to  awaken,  foster,  and  justify,  in 
the  minds  of  all  my  hearers,  is  just  this :  Teaching 
is  a  learned  profession;  it  should  be  earnestly 
studied  and  practised  with  professional  con- 
scientiousness and  professional  pride.  It  follows, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  that  the  professional  teacher 
must  have  a  fit  professional  equipment.  It  is 
with  this  principle  in  view  that  the  state  is  found- 
ing Normal  Schools  and  Teachers'  Colleges,  is 
more  and  more  requiring  an  advanced  education  of 
the  candidates  for  its  positions;  and  is  making 
more  difficult  to  pass,  the  examinations  which  it 
holds  before  the  candidates,  at  the  entrance  to 
these  positions. 

I  am  now  going  to  raise  certain  inquiries,  and 
make  certain  suggestions,  regarding  the  proper 
equipment  for  the  professional  teacher.  In  doing 
this  I  shall  continue  to  hold,  even  more  firmly  if 


THE  EQUIPMENT   OF   THE   TEACHER         141 

possible,  to  the  point  of  view  already  taken.  This 
leads  me  to  say  at  once,  that  the  all-inclusive 
equipment  for  the  successful  fulfilment  of  the  obli- 
gations of  this  particular  kind  of  personal  relation, 
is  that  the  teacher  shall  be  the  right  kind  of  a  per- 
son. To  say  this,  of  course,  defines  nothing ;  but  it 
calls  us  back  to  our  original  point  of  view.  Just 
as  the  teacher's  work  with  the  pupil  culminates  in 
the  forming  of  character,  so  the  most  important 
and  comprehensive  equipment  for  the  doing  of  this 
work,  is  the  possession  of  a  sound  and  high-toned 
character. 

In  order  the  better  to  understand  the  relation 
between  the  teacher's  work  and  the  teacher *s  equip- 
ment, in  this  aspect  of  both,  it  is  worth  while  to 
dwell  for  a  few  moments  upon  the  conception  of 
character.  This  word,  like  all  others,  may  be  used 
with  a  variety  of  meanings  and  with  a  broader  or 
narrower  significance.  As  I  wish  to  employ  it,  how- 
ever, it  emphasizes  the  comprehensiveness  of  char- 
acter. A  whole  treatise  on  ethics  would  be  required 
to  elaborate  this  thought,  but,  so  important  is  it 
for  my  immediate  purposes,  that  I  am  going  to  run 
some  risk  of  wearying  you  with  commonplaces  by 
speaking  at  considerable  length  concerning  the  sub- 
ject. 

In  the  first  place,  I  call  your  attention  to  the 
somewhat  neglected  truth,  that  a  sound  and  noble 
character  involves  and  requires  self-cultivation  of 


142    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  intellect  and  of  the  powers  of  thinking  clearly 
and  comprehensively.  There  have  been  in  this 
country  so  many  triumphs,  amounting  to  seeming, 
if  not  really  great  successes,  on  the  part  of  unedu- 
cated and  so-called  self-made  men,  that  the  neces- 
sity of  a  trained  mind  for  a  good  and  successful 
living,  in  any  pursuit  or  calling,  has  been  underes- 
timated or  supprest.  But  two  things  are  to  be 
noted  about  all  this.  These  really  successful  men 
have  with  few  exceptions,  given  great  diligence  and 
attention  to  the  self -training  of  their  minds;  and 
they  have,  with  scarcely  more  exceptions,  either 
openly  or  secretly  lamented  their  lack  of  early  and 
prolonged  education.  It  is,  in  general,  only  vulgar 
and  unscrupulous  politicians,  and  equally  vulgar 
and  unscrupulous  business  men, — both  of  whom  are 
persons  of  bad  character, — ^who  are  wont  to  dis- 
esteem  the  prolonged  discipline  of  the  mind,  under 
the  influences  of  the  more  advanced  forms  of  edu- 
cation. This,  our  attitude  toward  the  moral  obli- 
gation to  secure  as  much  as  possible  of  intellectual 
growth,  is  psychologically,  ethically,  and  histori- 
cally justifiable. 

In  defense  of  this  position,  I  pass  on  to  say  that 
voluntary  ignorance,  or  failure  to  discipline  to 
their  right  use  the  intellectual  faculties,  is  wrong- 
doing and  is  surely  productive  of  an  unsound  and 
ignoble  character.  The  pupil  in  the  higher  grades 
of  the  public  school,  but  especially  in  college  or  in 


THB  BQUIPMENT  OP  THE  TEACHER         143 

the  imiversity,  wllo  shirks  or  scamps  his  work,  is 
not  simply  guilty  of  something  inexpedient,  but 
also  of  something  immoral.  And  the  teacher,  who 
does  not  do  his  best  to  impress  the  pupil  with  this 
fact,  fails  of  his  opportunity  as  a  former  of  sound 
and  noble  moral  character.  Nature  puts  a  premium 
on  brains,  and  Heaven  exacts  a  penalty  for  their 
misuse  or  disuse. 

Not  only  is  the  true  theory  of  the  virtues  and  the 
practise  of  virtuous  living  dependent  upon  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  intellect,  but  there  are  certain  of  the 
virtues,  the  very  nature  of  which  entitles  them  to 
be  called  ** virtues  of  the  intellect.**  This  is  not 
because  they  do  not,  as  do  all  the  other  virtues, 
involve  right  feeling  and  the  exercise  of  will,  but 
because  they  especially  call  into  activity  the  intel- 
lectual faculties,  and  because  they  require  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  intellect  for  their  own  best 
development.  Such  are  the  virtues  of  wisdom, 
justness,  trueness,  etc.  The  individual  man  can  not 
attain  a  high  degree  of  wisdom, — a  virtue  which 
is,  essentially,  the  employment  of  mind,  with  its 
discriminating  and  reasoning  powers,  in  the  selec- 
tion of  means  and  ends  which  correspond  to  moral 
ideals, — ^without  a  trained  mind.  It  is  not  on  the 
bench  alone,  but  also  on  the  teacher's  platform 
that  the  sharpest  uses  of  a  trained  intellect  are 
needed,  in  order  to  discriminate  what  is  just,  and 
to  devise  ways  for  seeing  that  justice  is  actually 


144    TEE  TEACEER'8  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

done.  And  nothing  more  effectually  undermines  a 
teacher 's  influence  for  good  over  his  pupils  than  to 
lose  the  reputation  of  being  a  just  person.  Nor  is 
there  lack  of  true  insight  in  the  popular  saying  that 
such  or  such  a  person  does  **not  know  enough  to 
tell  the  truth,  even  if  he  wanted  to.'*  What  can, 
indeed,  be  more  obvious  than  that  trained  judgment 
is  the  prime  requisite,  and  next  to  good  will  indis- 
pensable, for  the  practise  of  wisdom,  justness,  and 
trueness,  in  the  professional  equipment  of  the 
teacher  ? 

And,  finally,  how  can  one  person  hope  to  stim- 
ulate, and  assist,  and  direct,  the  mental  training 
of  another,  without  having  passed  through  the 
stages  of  mental  self -culture  or  without  manifesting 
a  constant  and  serious  interest  in  mental  self- 
culture? 

Even  more  obviously  true  is  it  that  a  sound  and 
noble  character  involves  self-cultivation  of  the 
emotions  and  sentiments.  This  is,  indeed,  so  obvi- 
ous and  generally  acknowledged  as  scarcely  to  need 
elaboration.  Everybody  recognizes  the  truth  that 
**good  character*'  implies  the  control  of  the  appe- 
tites and  passions,  and  of  the  so-called  lower  emo- 
tions. That  the  finest  character  is  dependent  upon 
the  strength  and  refinement  of  the  sentiments,  the 
higher  forms  of  feeling,  is  equally  true,  if  not  so 
obvious  and  universally  acknowledged.  To  take  an 
instance :    Gratitude  is,  I  fear,  rather  a  rare  f ormi 


THE   EQUIPMENT   OF  THE   TEACHER         145 

of  the  noblest  sentiments,  to  express  itself  in  the 
relations  maintained  between  teacher  and  pupil  in 
this  country  at  the  present  time.  There  still  exists 
a  commendable  degree  of  this  virtue  in  the  attitude 
of  the  children  of  the  socially  lower  classes— more 
especially  among  foreigners — toward  the  teacher 
who  has  won  their  confidence  and  affection.  In  the 
Orient,  as  I  can  testify  from  a  large  experience  and 
with  a  full  heart,  it  is  much  more  admirably  strong 
and  tender,  than  is  wont  to  be  the  case  with  us,  if 
we  happen  to  have  our  work  with  the  children  of 
the  rich  and  socially  higher  classes.  Here  is  a 
sentiment,  to  miss  the  exercise  and  cultivation  of 
which  is  a  dire  calamity  for  the  pupil;  but  which 
the  teacher  can  not,  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
case,  cultivate  as  directed  toward  himself.  And 
there  are  many  obstacles,  some  of  which  may  easily 
render  his  attempt  ridiculous,  even  if  he  attempts 
to  awaken  the  sentiment  toward  others  most  inti- 
mately related  to  the  pupil.  How  can  we  expect 
to  make  the  child,  by  any  process  of  exhortation 
or  instruction,  grateful  toward  the  drunken  father 
who  beats  him,  or  the  shiftless  mother  who  neglects 
him ;  or  the  young  man  or  young  woman,  grateful 
toward  parents  who  are  themselves  living  selfishly, 
and  who  have  reared  their  children  to  begin  life 
with  the  same  selfish  aims  and  low  estimates  of 
life's  values?  There  would  seem,  then,  to  be  left 
only  the  way  of  example  for  the  cultivation  of  the 


146    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

virtuous  sentiment  of  gratitude.  Perhaps  if  the 
teachers  would  show  before  their  pupils  more  grat- 
itude toward  the  men  and  women  who  taught  them, 
they  would  in  this  round-about  way  do  the  utmost 
to  cultivate  this  noble  sentiment. 

The  same  difficulties  do  not,  however,  accompany 
the  teacher's  attempts  to  cultivate  in  himself,  and 
by  way  of  example  in  his  pupils,  the  sentiments  of 
loyalty,  benevolence,  love  of  truth  and  justice,  and 
the  feelings  evoked  by  the  appreciation  of  beauty 
and  of  moral  excellence.  All  these  forces  of  fine 
character  contribute  to  that  equipment  of  the 
teacher  which  is  most  essential  to  the  highest 
success  in  the  work  of  education. 

For,  just  as  there  are  important  gifts  and  acqui- 
sitions of  the  moral  sort,  which  are  fittingly  spoken 
of  as  "virtues  of  the  intellect,'*  so  there  are  equally 
important  gifts  and  acquisitions  which  may,  with 
equal  propriety,  be  spoken  of  as  **  virtues  of  the 
heart."  Such  virtues  show  themselves  in  the 
hospitable,  kind,  gentle  and  polite  treatment  of  our 
fellows,  irrespective  of  race,  wealth,  or  social  posi- 
tion. I  am  inclined  to  say  of  teachers  in  the  public- 
school  system  of  the  United  States,  at  the  present 
time,  what  I  am  quite  ready  to  say  of  the  ministry 
of  today,  that  the  most  useful  of  all  qualifications 
is  that  they  should  be  real  gentlemen,  that  they 
should  be  real  ladies.  Gentleness  in  manners  is 
quite  compatible  with  firmness  in  judgment  and 


TEE  EQUIPMENT   OF  THE   TEACHER         147 

will;  and  politeness,  where  it  proceeds  from  a 
kindly  disposition  and  from  acquaintance  with  the 
forms  of  behavior  expected  in  genuinely  *'good 
society,"  is  no  insignificant  virtue.  Nothing  can 
be  further  from  the  truth  than  the  notion  that 
roughness,  and  bluffness,  and  coarseness,  are  indica- 
tive of  a  courageous  and  strong  character. 

But,  above  all,  does  a  sound  and  noble  character 
involve  a  disciplined  and  self-controlled  will. 
Indeed,  here  is  the  central  point  of  all  the  self- 
cultivation  of  character.  I  have  already  remarked 
upon  the  fact  that,  in  the  earlier  stages  of  education 
the  active  use  of  the  faculties  of  the  learner  must 
be  to  a  large  extent,  induced  or  forced  by  extran- 
eous motives.  But  if  the  process  of  coaxing  and 
forcing  succeeds,  these  so-called  active  powers 
become  trained  to  a  higher  form  of  seZ/-activity, 
and  finally  become  thoroughly  enlisted  in  the  inter- 
ests of  5eV-cultivation.  It  is,  of  course,  man's 
power  of  self-control  that  makes  him  able,  as  the 
lower  animals  are  not  able,  to  cultivate  himself.  If 
any  one  were  inclined  to  dispute  the  distinction 
which  I  made  in  an  earlier  lecture  between  the 
education  of  the  human  being  and  the  training  of 
the  animals,  even  he  would  scarcely  have  the 
courage  to  maintain  that  the  animals  in  general  can 
become  thoroughly  interested  in  gaining  for  them- 
selves a  higher  degree  of  self -culture,  by  the  volun- 
tary and  persistent  adoption  of  a  course  of  self- 


148    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

education.  But  this  is  precisely  what  the  human 
being  may  be  educated  to  do.  And  it  is  precisely 
what  every  professional  teacher  is  in  duty  bound 
to  do.  His  position,  in  the  exercise  of  the  function 
of  forming  the  character  of  others  puts  him  under 
obligation  to  undertake  and  diligently  to  pursue 
the  self-cultivation  of  character. 

Again,  we  may  notice  that  a  third  class  of  the 
most  important  forms  of  virtuous  living  empha- 
sizes the  power  of  self-control ;  they  may,  therefore, 
not  inappropriately,  be  called  "virtues  of  the  will." 
Such  virtues  are  courage,  or  the  control  over  our 
fears ;  temperance,  or  the  control  over  our  appetites 
and  passions;  and  constancy,  or  the  kind  of  will 
which  holds  the  individual  steadily  on  his  way  in 
the  face  of  obstacles  and  of  disappointment,  and 
which  is  the  opposite  of  the  prevalent  fickleness.  No 
other  class  of  persons,  I  maintain,  need  more  of 
these  fundamental  virtues  of  the  will,  than  do  the 
teachers  of  the  country  at  the  present  time.  The 
courage  required  by  the  common  soldier  in  our 
army,  or  by  the  midshipman  in  our  navy,  under 
existing  circumstances,  bears  no  comparison  with 
that  required  by  the  country  schoolma'am,  or  the 
teacher  of  a  ward  school  in  any  of  our  cities,  as 
she  faces  her  pupils  at  the  beginning  of  her  first 
day 's  task  with  them.  And  I  must  say  that  I  very 
much  doubt  whether  those  gentlemen,  in  case  of  a 
call  to  a  real  and  desperate  fighting,  would  acquit 


THE   EQUIPMENT   OF  THE   TEACHER         149 

themselves  so  well  as  does  the  average  woman 
teacher  when  she  is  put  to  the  test  in  the  manner 
of  her  profession. 

If  the  comprehensiveness  of  what  we  call  charac- 
ter is  made  evident  when  we  consider  the  subject 
from  the  psychological  point  of  view,  so  also  is  the 
worth  of  character,  when  we  consider  it  from  the 
ethical  point  of  view.  According  to  the  sayings 
of  the  great  philosopher,  Immanuel  Kant,  the  only 
thing  of  an  absolutely  unconditioned  worth  is  a 
*'Good  Will."  And  by  a  good  will,  as  he  employed 
the  term,  we  may  understand  a  self-determined 
and  self -cultivated  good  character. 

In  illustrating  this  truth,  we  may  profitably 
employ  the  common  distinction  of  things  that  have 
value  or  worth,  into  instrumental  values,  or  things 
that  are  valuable  as  means  to  ends,  and  uncon- 
ditioned values,  or  things  that  have  value  in  them- 
selves. It  is  difficult  to  maintain  this  distinction 
throughout  in  any  absolute  way.  But  we  may  say 
that  happiness,  truth,  beauty,  and  moral  goodness, 
are  all  ends  to  be  sought  in  some  sort  for  their  own 
sake ;  and  for  the  seeking  of  which  we  think  it  right 
to  use  other  things  called  ''good,"  as  means  useful 
to  the  attainment  of  these  ends.  I  shall  not  argue 
the  case  with  utilitarianism,  which  claims  that  mor- 
ality is  a  good  only  because  it  is  an  end  to  happi- 
ness; or  with  pragmatism,  so-called,  which  has 
made  the  utterly  vain  and  even  mischievous  attempt 


150    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

to  resolve  the  good  of  truth  into  some  form  of  the 
useful  for  practical  purposes.  For  the  end  I  have 
in  view  in  this  course  of  lectures — it  has  already 
been  made  clear — is  not  the  establishment  of  a 
psychology  or  a  philosophy  of  education,  but  a 
survey  of  the  grounds  on  which  we  may  place  our 
estimate  of  our  ethical  opportunities  and  respon- 
sibilities as  professional  teachers.  But  this  pur- 
pose of  mine  has  already  led  us  to  place  the  highest 
estimate  upon  the  worth  of  character  as  a  neces- 
sity for  the  teacher's  equipment.  It  is  a  sound  and 
noble  personality  in  which  all  the  things  of  highest 
worth  find  their  most  complete  realization.  Such 
a  personality  unites,  in  a  manner  not  to  be  paral- 
leled elsewhere,  the  good  things  of  happiness,  truth, 
beauty,  and  moral  excellence.  A  society  composed 
of  such  persons  would,  if  it  could  be  attained, 
realize  the  ideal  of  a  supreme  and  unconditioned 
worth.  But  it  is  only  as  composed  of  individuals, 
who  are  self-cultivated  in  such  a  character,  that 
this  social  ideal  can  ever  be  progressively  and  ap- 
proximately realized.  Now  the  function  of  the 
teacher  is  to  assist  in  an  exceedingly  important  and 
effective  way,  in  the  promotion  of  this  individual 
and  social  ideal.  But  in  order  to  render  valid 
assistance  the  teacher  must  undertake  the  self-culti- 
vation of  the  same  ideal.  For  it  is  not  by  fault- 
finding or  by  exhortation  that  the  securing  of  this 
Bort  of  equipment  will  come  to  be  prized  and 


THE  EQUIPMENT  OF  THE   TEACHER         151 

sought  after  by  our  profession ;  nor  is  it  by  giving 
glowing  but  largely  falsified  certificates  to  school- 
teachers' agencies,  or  to  college  presidents,  or  to 
principals  and  superintendents,  that  success  can  be 
guaranteed.  It  must,  the  rather,  be  by  way  of  each 
one  of  us  making  the  growth  of  such  a  character  a 
matter  of  aspiration,  so  as  to  afford  a  stimulus  and 
a  pattern  for  our  pupils  and  for  one  another. 

In  carrying  out  our  aspirations  for  this  kind  of 
equipment,  however,  we  must  not  forget  or  neglect 
the  consideration  of  method.  Here  the  doctrine  of 
method  is  an  essential  part  of  the  very  conception 
itself.  As  we  have  already  seen,  the  attainment  of 
a  high-class  character  is  possible  only  by  the 
method  of  self-cultivation.  It  can  not  be  absorbed 
or  made  a  matter  of  gift,  or  expected  as  a  chance 
growth.  We  may  employ  others  to  make  for  us 
all  manner  of  things  that  are  good  as  means  toward 
the  ultimate  ends  of  life.  We  can  purchase  houses, 
clothing,  transportation,  books,  toys,  or  jewelry,  or 
bric-a-brac.  We  may  go  to  external  nature  and  ask 
her  to  grow  for  us  her  grains  and  her  fruits,  or  to 
yield  up  to  us  her  stores  of  metal— of  iron,  silver 
and  gold.  We  may  resort  to  books  and  to  the  living 
teacher  for  information,  for  stores  of  knowledge, 
and  for  the  happiness  which  good  literature  and 
improving  conversation  can  bestow.  But,  in  the 
last  resort,  we  must  make  our  characters  for  our- 
selves.    Inheritance,    environment,    and  personal 


152    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

influence  largely  determine,  without  doubt,  what 
that  character  will  ultimately  be.  Only  as  these 
things  arouse  and  guide,  or  else  deaden  and  blind 
our  very  Selves  in  the  work  of  taking  themselves 
in  hand  and  making  out  of  the  raw  material  fur- 
nished by  ancestry  and  surroundings,  the  finest 
possible  product,  will  success  be  attained. 

We  recur  again,  to  our  most  comprehensive  point 
of  standing  and  of  observation :  The  very  concep- 
tion of  character  is  such  as  to  make  it  the  most 
important  part  of  the  teacher's  equipment  for  the 
successful  discharge  of  his  most  important  func- 
tion. This  function  is  a  species  of  personal  inter- 
course. Its  culminating  interest  is  the  forming  of 
personal  character.  The  teacher  must,  then,  him- 
self possess  this  right  character;  and  to  get  it  is 
possible  only  through  self -culture. 

But  now  the  question  arises:  How  shall  this 
thing  of  highest  value— a  sound  and  noble  charac- 
ter—be brought  into  requisition  and  made  of  prac- 
tical use  in  the  teacher's  work  of  education?  The 
negative  side  of  the  answer  to  this  question  receives 
abundant,  and  sometimes  more  than  abundant, 
emphasis  and  attention.  A  bad  and  ignoble  char- 
acter makes  impossible  the  highest  success  in  the 
work  of  education.  But  how  does  a  good  and  noble 
character  positively  contribute  to  the  success  of  the 
person  engaged  in  the  work  of  education?  This  is 
a  question  which  is  not  usually  made  so  prominent, 


TEE   EQUIPMENT   OF   THE   TEACHER         153 

and  the  answer  to  which  is  not,  at  first  blush,  quite 
so  evident. 

It  is  by  no  means  true  that  the  most  obviously 
virtuous— certainly  not  the  most  conspicuously 
"goody-goody"— teachers  are  also  the  conspicu- 
ously most  successful  with  their  pupils  in  the  work 
of  education.  Plainly,  then,  in  order  to  make  our 
theory  tally  with  the  facts,  we  must  interpret  the 
theory  liberally,  and  scrutinize  the  facts  critically. 
But  for  this  we  have  already  prepared  the  way. 
The  virtuous  character  which  we  have  been  com- 
mending is  virile  and  adaptable  to  the  actual  con- 
ditions of  human  life,  in  its  present  imperfect  and 
confusing  social  environment;  and  the  success  at 
which  the  conscientious  teacher  is  aiming,  may  be 
something  quite  inaccurately  measured  by  the 
rating  of  examination  papers,  or  the  certificates  of 
school-boards,  or  even  the  temporary  estimates  of 
the  pupils  themselves. 

Taking  all  the  variable  and  uncertain  factors 
into  the  account,  it  is  only  reasonable  to  expect 
that  good  character  will  go  a  long  way  toward  pre- 
venting certain  mistakes  which  are  highly  injuri- 
ous, or  even  fatal,  to  the  best  success  of  the  teacher. 
Such  are  the  mistakes  of  habitual  deceit  or  lying,  of 
hasty  injustice  or  more  deliberate  partiality,  of 
unkindness  and  cruelty,  of  indifference  or  con- 
tempt, of  self-indulgence  or  laziness,  of  shamming 
or  pretense.     Such  are  some  of  those  breaches  of 


154    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

good  conduct  to  which  we  teachers  are  continually 
tempted  and  peculiarly  liable.  For  the  teacher, 
whose  attitude  toward  the  scholastic  improvement 
and  moral  welfare  of  his  pupils  is  one  of  habitual 
indifference  or  open  contempt,  I,  for  my  part,  have 
absolutely  no  respect,  no  matter  how  brilliant  his 
scholarship,  or  seemingly  successful,  as  judged  by 
his  own  imperfect  standards,  his  work  may  be.  But 
I  suppose  there  are  few  of  us  who  would  not  feel 
compelled  to  plead  guilty  to  occasional  fits  of  only 
half-excusable  laziness,  and  to  not  more  than  half- 
justifiable  concealing,  rather  than  confessing,  of  our 
ignorance,  and  so  of  incurring  before  our  own 
consciences,  at  least,  the  charge  of  shamming  or 
pretense.  Indeed,  it  may  be  a  legitimate  subject 
for  casuistical  inquiry :  *  *  How  much  shamming  and 
pretense  of  knowledge  is  morally  justifiable  on  the 
teacher's  part?  Is  it  one-half,  or  two-thirds,  as 
much  as  the  doctor  is  justified  in  employing ?''  In 
neither  case  will  the  patient  permit  the  one  looked 
to  as  an  authority,  discreetly  to  preserve  silence. 
But,  in  neither  case  can  the  authority  be  always 
confessing  ignorance  without  impairing  all  sem- 
blance of  being  an  authority.  Like  all  questions 
of  conduct,  these  demand  for  their  practical  solu- 
tion experience  and  tact,  that  are  backed  up  and 
enforced  by  a  sound  and  noble  character.  And 
without  such  a  character,  no  amount  of  learning, 
or  skill  in  the  use  of  method,  can  enable  the  teacher 


TEE  EQUIPMENT  OF  THE  TEACHER         155 

to  substitute  for  the  deficiency  in  equipment  which 
is  occasioned  by  such  immoralities  as  these. 

On  the  contrary,  the  possession  of  a  sound  and 
noble  character  secures  for  the  teacher  the  follow- 
ing, among  other,  advantages  and  their  results. 
This  it  inevitably  does,  because  the  central  thing 
about  such  a  character  is  that  right-royal  '^good 
will,"  which  shows  its  goodness  by  fixing  a  stead- 
fast and  intelligent  purpose  on  the  bringing  about 
of  the  desired  results.  Such  a  will  guides  the  per- 
sonality in  self-development,  and  works  the  silent, 
but  powerful  effects  of  an  example  approved  by 
others.  In  the  Orient,  although  the  conception  of 
the  value  of  personal  life,  as  applied  to  every  indi- 
vidual, still  lags  far  behind  the  height  to  which  the 
Christian  religion,  and  the  prevalent  form  of  polit- 
ical development,  have  raised  the  same  conception 
among  the  Western  nations,  the  effect  of  personal 
influence  as  proceeding  from  certain  great  and 
selected  examples  is  made  much  more  of  in  their 
system  of  education  than  is  the  case  with  us.  The 
Confucian  doctrine  of  Heaven's  dealing  with 
nations  implies  the  inestimable  influence  for  good 
or  for  evil,  of  the  example  of  the  supreme  ruler  of 
the  nation.  This,  you  will  remember,  is  the  phil- 
osophy of  history  which  underlies  the  narratives 
of  the  Old  Testament.  High  up  in  the  scale  of  this 
kind  of  influence,  the  teacher  is  placed  by  tlii« 
Oriental  conception  and  its  corresponding  form  of 


156    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

practise.  The  good  teacher  is  something  more  than 
an  instructor  in  the  current  sciences ;  he  is  a  rabbi, 
a  master,  a  person  who  is  wise  and  worthy  of  being 
copied  in  his  views  of  life,  and  in  his  practical  ways 
of  living.  Perhaps  we  can  never  establish  in  our 
country  this  ancient,  Oriental  estimate  of  the 
power  and  the  value  of  the  teacher's  example, 
upon  the  young  and  upon  the  whole  national  life. 
Perhaps,  too,  we  ought  not  to  wish  to  establish  it. 
But  we  can  not  abrogate,  and  it  is  highly  desir- 
able that  we  should  not  further  diminish,  the  psy- 
chological laws  which  will  always  make  the  moral 
character  of  the  teachers  of  any  land,  by  their 
example,  one  of  the  most  powerful  of  all  influences 
over  the  moral  character  of  the  people  of  the  land. 
Furthermore:  The  higher  our  estimate  of  the 
value  of  varied  and  exact  knowledge  of  subjects  and 
of  methods  becomes,  as  a  necessary  part  of  the 
equipment  of  the  successful  teacher,  the  higher 
must  rise  also  our  estimate  of  that  other  kind  of 
equipment  which  consists  in  the  possession  of  a 
sound  and  noble  character.  For  it  furnishes  the 
purpose,  which  leads  and  stimulates  the  person 
whose  purpose  it  is,  to  attain  and  to  develop  all 
the  otlier  more  important  factors  in  the  equipment 
of  the  professional  teacher  for  the  most  successful 
discharge  of  his  function.  This  purpose  will  do 
all  that  is  wise,  under  the  circumstances  of  the 
individual,   to   provide   means   for   the   necessary 


TEE   EQUIPMENT   OF   TEE   TEACEER         157 

growth  of  knowledge,  the  improvment  of  one's 
standing  in  science,  and  one's  skill  in  the  right  use 
of  method. 

But,  especially,  does  good  will  tend  to  cultivate 
those  relations  of  confidence,  admiring  trust,  and 
even  personal  affection,  which  favor  so  powerfully 
the  ability  of  the  teacher  to  discharge  successfully 
the  daily  duties,  and  to  seize  the  opportunities,  of 
his   appointed   task. 

I  have  little  doubt  that  this  lecture  has  seemed  to 
some  of  you  almost  intolerably  solemn  and  sermon- 
like; and,  perhaps  correspondingly  depressing 
rather  than  inspiring  in  its  aim  to  stimulate  self- 
cultivation  of  character  as  the  most  important 
equipment  for  the  best  success  in  the  work  of 
education.  I  take  pleasure,  therefore,  in  conclud- 
ing the  subject  with  some  remarks  which  may  serve 
to  lighten  the  feeling  of  downward  pressure.  This 
self-cultivation  of  character  is  not  to  be  attained 
by  over-much  study  of  treatises  on  pedagogy,  or 
even  by  prolonged  prayer  and  excessive  fasting.  It 
is,  the  rather,  to  be  grown  into  by  the  cheerful  and 
faithful  discharge  of  the  daily  duties,  with  eyes 
open  to  unprejudiced  and  unselfish  observation, 
and  with  the  periods  of  work  interrupted  by  suffi- 
cient rest  and  recreation.  Peculiarly  happy  is  that 
teacher  who  sincerely  loves  the  work  of  teaching, 
and  who  is,  therefore,  most  likely  to  be  happy  in 
this  work. 


158    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

And  the  self-cultivation  of  character  does  not 
bind  us  to  try  to  be  precisely  like  anybody  else 
that  is,  or  has  been,  or  ever  will  be;  but  to  aim  at 
growing  into  the  best  kind  of  selves  that  our  very 
own  selves  can  be.  In  all  corporate  enterprises 
that  employ  a  considerable  number  of  persons,  a 
certain  amount  of  system,  and  of  uniformity  of  aim 
and  method  must  be  insisted  upon.  An  educational 
system,  as  well  as  an  army,  the  civil  service,  the 
routine  of  business,  demand  some  things  that  tend 
to  give  a  semblance  of  likeness  to  all  the  persons 
who  engage  in  the  work  of  the  whold.  But  the 
deeper  varieties  and  dissimilarities  of  character 
remain.  And  in  the  teacher's  cultivation  of  char- 
acter, and  expression  of  character  in  the  work  of 
teaching,  nothing  approaching  a  very  strict  uni- 
formity should  be  either  expected  or  sought. 

Frankly,  then:  I  ''take  little  stock"  in  the 
attempt  to  turn  out  numbers  of  teachers  who  seem 
to  be  alike,  or  who  all  teach  alike.  I  would,  in 
general,  say  to  the  accepted  candidate :  ''Here  you 
are,  a  man  or  a  woman,  supposed  to  be  fitted  for  the 
position  and  the  work  which  you  assume  to  take. 
We  do  not  exhort  you;  we  do  not  dictate  to  you. 
You  have  our  sympathy;  in  all  ways  essentially 
right,  and  for  you  actually  successful,  you  shall 
have  our  support.  Go  in,  and  win.  Your  own 
real  success,  in  your  own  chosen  way,  will  be  your 
highest  reward." 


LECTURE  YIII 

THE  EQUIPMENT  OF  THE  TEACHER: 
AS  GROWTH  IN  KNOWLEDGE 

It  has  already  been  made  apparent  that  a  certain 
spirit  of  acquisitiveness  and  docility,  with  its  result 
in  the  development  of  the  intellectual  faculties  and 
in  the  growth  of  knowledge,  are  essential  elements 
to  the  formation  of  a  sound  and  noble  character. 
That  wisdom  is  a  virtue  is  only  a  commonplace  of 
morals.  But,  wisdom  I  have  characterized  as  a  vir- 
tue of  the  intellect.  It  enters  into  that  sort  of 
character  which  is  at  the  same  time  the  chief  aim 
of  education  and  also  the  most  important  qualifi- 
cation for  the  person  fitted  to  take  the  active  part 
in  promoting  the  cause  of  public  education.  This 
indirect  way,  however,  of  emphasizing  the  truth 
that  the  professional  teacher  should  be  a  **  particu- 
larly knowing  person"  is  surely  not  enough.  A 
special  kind  and  degree  of  knowledge  is,  of  course, 
an  essential  part  of  the  requisite  equipment  of  the 
professional  teacher.  Just  as  truly  as  the  lawyer 
professes  a  special  kind  and  degree  of  knowledge  of 
the  law ;  the  physician  of  physiology,  medicine  and 
hygiene,  and  the  minister,  of  religion ;  so  truly  does 
the  teacher  profess  the  special  kind  and  degree  of 

159 


160    THE  TEACHER' 8  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

knowledge  which  his  proposal  to  practise  in  the 
jBeld  of  education  demands.  And  like  the  profes- 
sional lawyer,  physician,  or  minister,  if  the  *' edu- 
cationalist" does  not  have  what  he  professes,  he 
runs  the  risk  of  being  justly  set  down  as  a  quack 
or  a  charlatan.  The  kind  and  the  degree  of  knowl- 
edge professed  may  be  pretty  strictly  limited,  as  it 
was  in  the  case  of  the  colored  preacher  who  ad- 
mitted that  it  was  *'poor  preach''  for  poor  pay;  or 
of  that  other  minister  whose  deacon  objected  to 
paying  him  this  year  for  preaching  the  same  ser- 
mons for  which  he  had  been  paid  the  year  before ; 
or  of  the  ambitious  young  Japanese,  who  axiver- 
tised  for  a  moderate  stipend  to  teach  the  English 
language  as  far  as  the  letter  K.  But  the  teacher 
must  render  some  equivalent  by  way  of  imparting 
knowledge;  and  this  implies  the  possession  on  his 
own  part,  of  the  knowledge  which  it  is  promised 
to  impart. 

In  order,  then,  to  lay  on  our  consciences  the  duty 
and  the  opportunity  of  possessing  ourselves  of 
this  necessary  part  of  our  equipment  as  profes- 
sional teachers,  we  must  give  some  attention  to  the 
conditions  and  laws  under  which  comes  the  acquire- 
ment of  all  professional  knowledge.  The  most  inclu- 
sive of  these  regulative  principles  may  be  stated  in 
this  familiar  practical  way:  The  teacher  can  no 
more  than  the  pupil,  have  knowledge  without  gain- 
ing it  by  his  own  endeavors.    For  knowledge  is  pre- 


TEE   EQUIPMENT   OF   THE   TEACHER         161 

eminently  one  of  those  ' '  good  things, ' '  all  of  which, 
according  to  the  old  Greek  proverb,  ''the  gods  sell 
to  men,"  only  if  they  are  willing  ''to  pay  the  price 
in  toil."  And  the  very  conditions  which  surround 
the  system  of  education  in  the  present  day,  and 
which  determine  the  daily  tasks  both  within  and 
without  the  classroom,  are  such  that  the  work  of 
self-education,  in  the  growth  of  knowledge,  is  never 
done.  Most  of  us,  who  went  through  a  long  process 
of  training,  in  many  subjects  and  in  various  insti- 
tutions of  a  rising  grade  in  their  claims  to  ^^  finish" 
the  education  of  their  pupils,  can  remember  some- 
thing of  the  feeling  of  freedom  and  elation,  with 
which  we  passed  our  last  examination  and  finished 
our  last  graduating  exercises.  The  period  of  learn- 
ing seemed  over,  perhaps ;  at  any  rate,  we  had  been 
dubbed  "bachelors"  or  "masters"  of  the  arts  or  of 
science ;  or  even  doctors  of  philosophy  and  ' '  educa- 
tionalists, * '  qualified  with  the  possession  of  a  certifi- 
cate of  the  highest  class.  But  if  we  indulged  our- 
selves for  any  lengthy  period  in  the  pleasing 
illusion  that  now,  for  us,  the  age  of  the  student  and 
the  learner  was  over,  it  was  precisely  from  that 
period  that  the  decay  of  our  fitness  to  be  a  teacher 
at  all,  most  significantly  began.  For  the  work 
of  learning  can  never  be  separated  from  the  work  of 
teaching. 

The  declaration  which  I  have  just  made  might 
be  enforced  by  reference  backward  to  what  has 


162    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRAOTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

already  been  said  about  the  nature  of  all  human 
knowledge,  and  about  the  conditions  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  intellectual  faculties  of  the  individual. 
But  it  is  better  to  enforce  the  same  declaration  by 
the  broader,  historical  view,  as  it  applies  to  the 
acquirement  of  knowledge  by  the  race;  and  espe- 
cially, in  the  most  modern  times.  Every  branch  of 
human  knowledge  is,  and  always  has  been,  a  contin- 
uous and  unceasing  development.  But  within  the 
last  century,  and  even  within  the  last  two  decades, 
this  development  has  been  so  startlingly  rapid  as 
greatly  to  modify  all  the  so-called  positive  sciences, 
and  quite  radically  to  change  some  of  them.  Even 
the  most  abstract  and  *' exact* '—as  we  used  to  call 
them— of  the  sciences,  such  as  pure  mathematics 
and  pure  logic,  which  were  formerly  supposed  to 
have  the  characteristics  of  a  closed  system  of  un- 
questioned assumptions  and  demonstrated  conclu- 
sions, have  been  greatly  disturbed,  and  are  not  yet 
made  over  anew.  At  any  rate,  the  teacher  who 
knows  them  only  as  they  were  developed  fifty,  and 
even  twenty,  years  ago,  can  scarcely  be  said  to  know 
them  well  at  all.  But  especially  true  is  this  rapid 
development,  resulting  in  the  discovery  of  innum- 
erable new  facts,  the  adoption  of  new  points  of 
view,  the  overthrow  of  old  laws,  and  the  forthput- 
ting  of  new  hypotheses— not  to  say,  as  yet,  the 
establishment  of  a  body  of  wholly  new  principles — 
of  such  applied  sciences  as  physics,  chemistry,  biol- 


THE   EQUIPMENT   OF  THE   TEACHER         163 

ogy;  of  the  descriptive  sciences  of  geography,  his- 
tory, etc. ;  and  of  the  psychological  sciences  of  eco- 
nomics, anthropology,  ethics,  etc. 

To  expect  any  teacher  who  professes  any  one  of 
these  sciences— and  almost  every  teacher  in  our 
public  schools,  and  most  of  our  teachers  in  the 
smaller  colleges,  are  obliged  to  profess  several  of 
them— to  make  himself  really  and  truly  possessed  of 
all  this  newly  developed  knowledge,  is  to  expect  the 
impossible.  And  the  effort  to  exact  from  a  candi- 
date any  such  profession  is  a  form  of  cruelty  which 
results  in  hypocrisy  and  shamming  on  the  part  of 
both  those  who  appoint  the  teachers  and  also  of  the 
teachers  appointed.  On  the  other  hand,  the  effort  to 
teach  any  considerable  part  of  this  newly  developed 
knowledge,  or  pretense  of  knowledge,  as  much  of 
it  really  is,  results  in  that  system  of  cramming  with 
a  multiplicity  of  ill-digested  and  undigestible  mate- 
rial, which  is  one  principal  curse  of  the  modern  sys- 
tem of  public  and  university  education  in  this 
country. 

Any  person,  however,  who  essayed  to  teach  any 
one  of  these  subjects,  with  no  equipment  in  the 
form  of  a  knowledge  of  some  of  its  recent  develop- 
ments, would  be  sadly  handicapped,  and  guiltily 
so,  unless  his  previous  conditions  had  made  the 
acquisition  of  such  knowledge  impossible.  Even  in 
the  latter  case,  one  would  be  inclined  to  add  that  so 
unfortunate  a  person  ought  not  to  teach  at  all,  if 


164    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

any  other  more  competent  candidate  can  be  found 
for  the  place,  or  if  he  can  get  any  other  sort  of 
work  than  teaching  which  he  can  the  better  do. 
But  what  I  wish  especially  to  emphasize  in  this  con- 
nection is  the  obligation  of  the  teacher  to  be  always 
learning,  if  not  from  the  love  of  learning  as  a  grat- 
ification of  the  noble  thirst  for  knowledge,  at  least 
from  the  conscientious  conviction  that  constant 
learning  is  indispensable  for  success  in  teaching; 
and,  as  well,  that  the  development  of  knowledge 
in  the  race  makes  constant  learning  necessary  to  the 
claim  to  know  anything  at  all,  really  and  to  good 
purpose. 

A  few  words  may  be  of  use  in  this  connection  as 
suggesting  the  relative  values  of  the  different  means 
available  by  the  average  teacher  for  getting  posses- 
sion of  some  of  this  new  knowledge,  and  so  of  com- 
plying with  the  necessity  for  constant  growth  of 
knowledge  as  a  part  of  his  professional  equipment. 
The  different  sources  of  supply  of  this  commodity 
available,  increasingly,  even  for  teachers  in  the  most 
isolated  and  out-of-the-way  places,  may  be  conven- 
iently divided  into  the  following  four:  (1)  observa- 
tion; (2)  reading;  (3)  viva  voce  instruction,  by 
conversation,  lectures,  etc.;  and  (4)  reflection.  The 
second  and  third  of  these  means  are,  indeed,  not 
always  available  for  every  teacher,  but  the  first  and 
fourth  always  are,  and  they  are  not  the  least  impor- 
tant.   Let  us  consider  a  point  or  two  with  regard 


THE   EQUIPMENT   OF   THE   TEACHER         165 

to  each  one  of  the  four.  Of  course,  the  daily  prac- 
tise of  the  teacher  keeps  constantly  before  the  eye 
and  the  mind  the  two  most  important  objects  for 
his  attentive  and  interested  and  profitable  observa- 
tion. These  are  the  teacher  himself  and  his  pupil. 
These  two  persons — so  the  whole  course  of  our 
theorizing  runs  in  this  attempt  to  establish  a 
*' Teachers'  Practical  Philosophy'' — are  the  main 
elements  in  all  the  educative  process.  Its  success 
will  be  determined  by  the  issues  of  the  special  kind 
of  intercourse  which  takes  place  between  these  two 
persons.  Now,  watching  the  pupils  sharply,  but 
not  too  sharply,  for  there  are  some  things  which  it 
is  desirable  that  the  teacher  should  not  see,  is  a 
highly  praised  way  of  gaining  such  knowledge  as 
the  teacher  needs  to  have.  But  how  about  observing 
ourselves  with  a  nearly  equal  sharpness  and  dili- 
gence? Surely  this  kind  of  observation  may  be 
productive  of  a  very  desirable  sort  of  critical  knowl- 
edge. In  all  the  physico-chemical,  natural  and  psy- 
chological sciences,  there  is  much  that  is  happening 
in  our  own  physical  and  social  environment,  no 
matter  how  restricted  that  environment  may  be, 
which  may  add  to  our  stock  of  new  and  useful 
knowledge. 

In  speaking  of  the  second  source  available  for 
the  unceasing  growth  of  knowledge,  the  reading  of 
books,  I  am  strongly  tempted  to  inveigh  lengthily 
and  violently  against  the  meaness  of  the  so-called 


166    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

educated  public  in  America,  with  respect  to  the  buy- 
ing and  study  of  good  books.  In  all  the  grades  of 
our  educational  system,  even  including  the  pro- 
fessional schools  (with,  perhaps,  the  single  excep- 
tion of  the  schools  of  medicine)  it  is  increasingly 
difficult  to  secure  among  the  students  the  private 
ownership  and  diligent  study  of  thorough  books.  To 
give  an  example :  When  I  was  in  college,  there  were 
few,  or  none,  who  thought  it  possible  to  pursue  the 
study  of  the  classical  languages,  without  owning  at 
least  a  half  share  in  both  a  Greek  and  a  Latin  lexi- 
con, at  a  cost  of  five  dollars  each.  And  boys  were 
much  poorer  then  than  now,  and  squandered  almost 
nothing  on  athletics.  Now,  however,  there  is  not 
more  than  one  in  twenty  of  the  students  of  the 
classics  who  aims  to  have  more  than  a 
meagre  vocabulary  at  the  end  of  his  text-book, 
or  a  **pony,''  to  assist  him  in  a  hasty  guess- 
ing at  the  proper  interpretation  of  the  foreign 
words.  The  libraries  of  the  ministers  also  show 
that  they  are  doing  little  solid  reading;  even  their 
pursuit  of  theology  and  of  Biblical  learning  can 
scarcely  be  dignified  with  the  name  of  reflective 
study  of  these  professional  subjects.  How  far,  if  at 
all,  the  teachers  of  so-called  secular  subjects  are 
superior,  in  their  eagerness  to  acquire,  and  willing- 
ness to  pay  for,  and  diligence  to  use,  thorough 
books,  I  leave  it  for  you  to  say.  But  I  have  little 
respect  for  a  teacher  who  has  no  ambition  to  accu- 


TEE  EQUIPMENT  OF  THE  TEACHER         167 

mulate  something  of  a  library  of  such  books ;  and  I 
have  considerable  admiration  for  the  teacher  who  is 
willing  to  deny  himself  tickets  to  a  baseball  game, 
or  a  new  pair  of  gloves,  in  order  to  obtain,  by 
honorable  purchase,  a  coveted  new  book. 

The  means  of  growth  in  knowledge,  which  are 
open  to  us  all,  by  way  of  frequenting  lectures  of  the 
occasional  kind,  or  attending  conventions  and 
summer-schools,  or  exchanging  views  in  conversa- 
tion, may  seem  of  exaggerated  importance  as  com- 
pared with  their  cost  in  time,  money,  and  nervous 
energy;  but  their  great  value  can  not  be  denied. 
The  trouble  is  that  those  who  are  most  talkative 
and  ready  to  push  for  a  place  on  the  program,  are 
by  no  means  always  best  worthy  of  being  listened 
to  with  the  hope  of  receiving  helpful  instruction. 

But,  to  enhance  the  beneficial  effects,  and  to 
minimize  the  injurious  effects,  of  all  the  other 
means  for  growing  in  knowledge,  we  have  always 
in  our  power  the  fourth,  and  in  some  respects  the 
most  effective  means  of  all;  and  this  consists  in 
reflection.  What  we  have  observed,  what  we  have 
read,  what  we  have  heard,  that  we  can  think  over, 
when  the  quiet  hour  or  the  quiet  minutes  come.  I 
know  that  alas,  many  of  our  hard-worked  teachers 
have  far  too  few  such  hours,  or  even  minutes.  I 
know  that  all  our  American  life  is  far  too  much 
arranged  and  conducted  in  a  manner  to  make  reflec- 
tion difficult  or  impossible.    Still,  we  can  all  of  us 


168    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

at  times  choose  to  forego  some  other  things  which 
we  should  like  to  do,  and  occasionally  we  can  even 
refuse  to  do  some  things  which  we  seem  to  be 
required  to  do,  in  order  to  get  a  little  time  to  spend 
with  our  own  thoughts.  I  know  of  no  more  valuable 
advice  to  keep  reiterating  in  the  ears  of  the  profes- 
sional teacher  who  aspires  after  a  valid  increase  in 
his  available  stock  of  knowledge  than  this :  *  ^  Think 
it  over,  and  think  it  over  again,  until  you  make  its 
affirmation  or  denial  your  very  own!" 

Back  of  the  use  of  all  means  for  acquiring  knowl- 
edge, however,  there  is  implied  the  continual  exer- 
cise of  a  certain  spirit  on  the  part  of  the  profes- 
sional teacher.  This  may  be  called  the  spirit  of  the 
learner,  of  the  would-be  knower,  of  the  scholar. 
Its  principal  characteristics  are  of  a  semi-ethical 
nature,  and  therefore  depend  largely  on  the  posses- 
sion and  development  of  a  sound  and  noble 
character. 

First  of  all  the  factors  to  be  discerned  in  the 
spirit  of  the  learner  is  intellectual  curiosity,  or  the 
desire  to  know.  This  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as 
the  love  of  knowledge  '*for  its  own  sake."  But  we 
can  not  regard  knowledge  as  an  entity,  having  an 
existence  and  a  value  of  itself  and  apart  from 
knowing  minds.  We  may  desire  knowledge  for 
our  own  mind's  sake,  and  for  the  sake  of  other 
minds,  who  may  be  influenced  by  us.  For  it  is 
human  to  desire  to  know;  and  the  longing  and  the 


THE   EQUIPMENT   OF   THJE   TEACHER         169 

effort  after  knowledge  is  much  more  honorable  and 
profitable  than  the  ambition  to  be  rich,  or  to  have 
political  power.  Nothing  is  more  foolish  or  more 
despicable  than  the  attempt  of  the  wealthy  man, 
or  the  successful  politician,  to  exalt  his  ambition 
above  that  of  the  scholar  on  the  ground  of  its  supe- 
rior practicality.  That  was  a  scathing,  though 
sufficiently  gruesome,  answer  of  old  Carlyle,  who 
reminded  the  English  "buck,"  when  he  was  sneer- 
ing at  the  "men  of  ideas"  in  France,  that  the 
Frenchmen  of  the  next  generation  were  using  the 
tanned  hides  of  such  fellows  as  he  to  bind  the  books 
of  the  men  of  ideas,  withal  (an  actual  fact).  "All 
men,"  said  the  great  Greek  philosopher  Aristotle, 
"have  by  nature  a  desire  for  knovvdedge."  This 
same  saying,  Dante  made  a  motto  of  in  his  Divine 
Comedy.  If  the  spur  of  intellectual  curiosity  were 
withdrawn  from  man's  breast,  and  its  product  in 
the  shape  of  the  men  of  ideas  and  ideals  were  to 
cease,  all  the  falsely  so-called  "practical  men"  in 
the  world  would  not  suffice  to  advance  science  or  to 
secure  an  improved  social  development.  Now  there 
is  much  in  the  work  of  the  teacher,  especially  where 
it  is  apart  from  the  intellectual  and  social  centers 
and  among  dull  and  uninterested  pupils,  which 
tends  to  deaden  the  spirit  of  intellectual  curiosity. 
We  ask  ourselves,  perhaps,  "What  is  the  use  of 
learning  more,  when  so  little  use  is  called  for,  of 
what  we  already  know?"  "To  keep  up  the  spirit  of 


170    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  learner**— such  may  be  at  all  times  our  sufficient 
answer. 

Docility,  or  the  spirit  of  teachableness,  is  another 
characteristic  of  the  person  who  longs  for  an 
increased  possession  of  knowledge.  Since  Socrates, 
and  before,  it  has  been  clear  to  the  thoughtful,  that 
the  greater  the  knowledge,  the  more  sincere  the 
confession  of  ignorance.  All  the  wonderful  recent 
growths  of  all  the  positive  sciences  have  only  made 
more  numerous,  impressive,  and  mysterious,  the 
problems  which  remain  to  be  solved.  The  very 
function  of  teaching  tends  to  cultivate  a  certain 
assumption  of  authority,  of  finality,  which  may 
degenerate  into  an  unwarrantable  pride  of  knowl- 
edge, or  that  * ' cock-sureness * '  about  one's  own 
opinions  and  views,  which  is  decidedly  unfavorable 
to  all  growth  of  knowledge.  But,  coupled  with  that 
firmness  of  tenure  upon  the  truth,  that  assurance 
of  knowing,  which  the  teacher  is  entitled  to  have, 
there  should  always  go  an  unlimited  willingness  to 
learn,  a  modest  docility,  a  genuine  spirit  of  teach- 
ableness. 

Fidelity  is  also  an  important  factor  of  the  spirit 
necessary  to  the  continuous  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge. It  is  fidelity  which  secures  the  improvement 
of  opportunity.  Indeed,  this  virtue  in  the  Confu- 
cian ethics,  especially  as  its  system  has  developed 
in  Japan,  has  been  made  a  sort  of  central  and  con- 
trolling virtue.   Faithful  in  learning  is  the  counter- 


THE  EQUIPMENT  OF  THE  TEACHER         171 

part,  the  full  complement,  of  faithful  in  teaching. 
And  the  teacher  who  is  faithful  as  a  scholar  sets 
the  pace  to  the  fidelity  in  learning  of  the  pupils 
under  him. 

When  these  other  factors  are  combined  with 
patience— that  especially  difficult  virtue  for  all 
ambitious  minds— we  have  completed  the  slow- 
burning  but  effective  enthusiasm  for  knowledge 
which  leads  to  a  continuous  growth  in  its  possession. 

With  such  innumerable  kinds  and  infinite  degrees 
of  knowledge  open  to  the  ambitious  teacher,  there 
is  danger  of  confusion  of  purpose  leading  to  ulti- 
mate bewilderment;  and  there  is  imminent  and 
pressing  need  of  selection.  Into  this  jar  of  the  rich 
fruits  of  modern  science,  we  must  not  thrust  a 
childish  hand,  and  fill  it  so  full  of  unselected  sweet 
stuffs  as  to  be  unable  to  get  the  hand  out  again 
without  emptying  it  of  its  choicest  contents.  What 
kind  of  knowledge,  then,  is  required  by  the  teacher 
in  order  to  comply  with  a  reasonable  demand  for 
the  most  serviceable  equipment  of  knowledge? 
What  shall  I  try  to  know  something  of,  and  what 
shall  I  be  contented  to  know  little  or  nothing  about  ? 
And  if  I  try  to  learn  anything  about  this  and  that, 
how  much  shall  I  try  to  know  about  this,  and  how 
much  about  that?  To  answer  such  questions  as 
these,  and  by  their  answer  to  limit  in  a  practical 
way,  and  to  select  in  a  wise  way,  the  subjects  and 
the  proportions  of  our  various  knowledges,  affords 


172    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

some  of  the  most  difficult  problems  to  the  conscien- 
tious teacher. 

It  has  been  well  said,  as  bearing  on  the  selection 
of  studies  for  the  curriculum  of  the  higher  educa- 
tion, that  *  *  every  educated  man  should  know  a  little 
of  many  things,  and  as  much  as  possible  of  some  one 
thing."  The  saying  expresses  certain  fundamental 
principles  which  apply  to  all  the  advanced  stages 
of  education,  and  so  in  some  degree  to  the  self- 
education  of  the  teacher.  It  is  a  most  fortunate 
thing  for  any  one  of  our  profession,  when  he  is 
set  to  teach  chiefly  or  solely  those  things  about 
which  he  knows  most,  and  about  the  knowledge  of 
which  he  has  most  of  enthusiasm  and  affection. 
But  this  can  scarcely  be  the  happy  lot  of  those 
engaged  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  system  of 
public  education.  And  indeed,  it  is  not  true,  nor 
likely  soon  to  become  true,  of  the  majority  of  the 
professors  in  our  smaller  colleges.  On  the  other 
hand,  much  more  might  be  done  than  is  now  done, 
toward  making  it  in  a  measure  true  even  of  the 
teachers  of  the  public  primary  and  secondary 
schools.  There  is,  for  example,  no  insuperable 
obstacle  to  making  the  teaching  of  spelling,  or  of 
reading,  or  of  arithmetic,  a  sort  of  specialty;  or 
in  the  way  of  one's  coming  to  be  something  of  a 
local  celebrity  in  this  kind  of  teaching ;  or  of  getting 
up  a  real  enthusiasm  in  doing  well  this  elementary 
sort  of  work;  or  even  of  contributing  something 


THE  EQUIPMENT  OF  THE  TEACHER  173 

by  way  of  the  improvement  of  method,  to  the  pro- 
fession at  large.  I  am  sure  that  I  should  rather  win 
success  as  a  teacher  of  spelling  in  some  ward  school 
of  the  lower  grades,  than  fail  as  a  teacher  of 
ethics  in  some  university,  or  of  systematic  theology 
in  some  theological  seminary. 

But  in  case  there  are  none  of  the  subjects  in 
which  it  is  our  special  duty  to  give  instruction,  to 
possess  an  increased  knowledge  of  which  excites 
our  enthusiastic  effort,  there  is  still  another  way 
open  for  securing  the  benefits  of  intellectual  stimu- 
lus and  of  the  scientific  specialist 's  method  of  study. 
We  may  teach  reading,  and  be  devoted  to  the  study 
of  German  literature;  we  may  teach  spelling,  and 
be  devoted  to  American  history;  we  may  teach 
mathematics,  and  be  devoted  to  botany.  And  if  the 
influence  of  our  devotions,  in  their  control  over 
time  and  endeavor  is  kept  within  proper  limits,  it 
will  assist,  rather  than  hinder,  our  success  in  what- 
ever may  be  the  character  of  the  work  to  which  we 
are  appointed  as  teachers.  I  have  no  hesitation, 
then,  in  advising  you :  ' '  Have  a  hobby,  a  specialty, 
a  something  in  the  form  of  an  intellectual  pursuit, 
which  you  are  following  with  love  and  zeal,  and 
with  a  view  to  get  out  of  it  all  that  there  is  in  it. '  * 
In  this  way  you  will  be  able  the  better  to  comply 
with  those  two— seemingly  almost  incompatible— 
demands  which  are  made  upon  the  teacher,  for  a 


174    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PEIL080PEY 

special  degree,  both  of  many  knowledges,  and  of 
some  special  kind  of  knowledge. 

Let  us  now  briefly  consider  what  these  two 
demands  are,  and  what  is  the  possibility  of  a  rea- 
sonable compliance  with  them.  And,  first,  the 
teacher  needs  to  have  the  appearance  of  being  a 
*' well-informed  person."  This  is  eminently  desir- 
able, not  only  for  its  influence  over  his  pupils,  their 
parents,  and  the  community  at  large,  but  also  as  an 
important  part  of  his  equipment  for  the 
successful  exercise  of  the  teaching  function.  There 
is,  no  doubt,  an  excessive  and  absurd  demand  made 
upon  the  average  teacher,  to  be  a  veritable  fountain- 
head  of  every  kind  of  wisdom  and  knowledge.  I 
have  myself  been  supposed  to  be  an  expert,  and 
have  been  consulted  as  such,  on  subjects  ranging 
all  the  way  from  the  most  rational  conception  of 
God  to  the  most  approved  way  of  disposing  of  a 
crop  of  potatoes.  Excessive  and  absurd  as  many 
of  these  demands  are,  there  is  another  and  more 
reasonable  aspect  to  this  whole  way  of  looking  upon 
the  proper  equipment  of  the  teacher.  He  should 
be  a  person  **  well-informed "  on  many  subjects,  a 
person  of  much  so-called  ''general  intelligence." 
For,  the  process  of  education  through  which  he  has 
already  gone,  and  the  unceasing  process  of  self- 
cultivation  through  which  he  is  in  duty  bound  to 
be  going,  implies  as  much  as  this.  It  will  not  do 
for  him  to  assume  that  because  he  is  teaching 


THE   EQUIPMENT   OF   THE   TEACHER         175 

psychology,  he  does  not  need  to  know  anything  of 
economics  or  history;  or  because  he  is  teaching 
French,  that  he  can  afford  to  be  wholly  ignorant 
of  the  most  obvious  modem  discoveries  in  physics 
and  chemistry;  or  even  because  he  is  teaching 
reading  and  spelling,  that  all  the  business  and  poli- 
tics of  the  nation  do  not  concern  him.  Moreover, 
the  acquiring  of  knowledge  on  all  these  subjects  and 
on  all  subjects,  sharpens  the  wits,  and  trains  the 
faculties,  for  their  application  to  some  special  task ; 
while  many  of  them  so  dovetail  in  together  that 
increase  in  knowledge  of  any  one  of  a  large  group 
is  an  essential  gain  to  the  amount  of  knowledge 
possessed  about  any  other  belonging  to  the  same 
group  or  to  allied  groups. 

But  the  second  of  these  two  demands  made  upon 
the  professional  teacher  is  even  more  important. 
It  is  for  a  good  deal  of  a  certain  kind  of  knowledge. 
The  teacher  must  know  something  more  than  does 
the  average  man  or  woman  of  the  science  of  the 
subjects  which  he  professes  to  be  able  to  teach.  The 
knowledge  that  is  professed,  should  be,  in  the  truest 
and  highest  meaning  of  the  word,  possessed.  But 
"possession"  means  something  more  than  a  super- 
ficial acquaintance.  It  means  that  the  knowledge 
must  be  (1)  thorough,  (2)  accurate,  (3)  compre- 
hensive—so inwrought  into  the  texture  of  the  mind, 
as  it  were,  as  to  become  the  person  *s  very  own. 
This  is  necessary  in  order  to  have  the  knowledge 


176    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

ready  for  natural  and  spontaneous  expression.  In 
a  word,  the  knowledge  must  have  become  science. 
The  chief  characteristics  of  the  knowledge  that 
has  become  * '  science, ' '  in  the  most  generous  and 
fair  application  of  the  latter  word,  are  the  follow- 
ing. Such  knowledge  is  known  to  some  extent  at 
least,  in  its  grounds  or  reasons.  It  essays,  and  to 
some  extent,  at  least,  it  offers,  a  tenable  explana- 
tion of  the  information  it  imparts.  It  is  true,  there 
are  many  forms  of  science  which  still  remain  in  the 
descriptive  stage;  there  are  some  which  will,  per- 
haps, always  remain  largely  in  this  stage.  But 
science  longs  to  answer  the  question,  Why?  The 
skilful  teacher  never  checks  this  question  as  it 
spontaneously  rises  to  the  lips  of  the  child.  It  is 
the  teacher's  great  chance,  the  best  proof  of  an 
awakening  intelligence.  And,  therefore,  the 
teacher  is  always  asking  of  himself,  and  of  others, 
and  of  the  books  he  reads,  this  same  question.  Why  ? 
And  as  to  the  knowledge  of  fact,  the  knowledge  of 
**The  Why^'  is  added,  the  science  of  the  subject 
grows.  Closely  connected  with  this  characteristic 
of  really  scientific  knowledge,  is  another— namely, 
that  science  includes  the  knowledge  of  its  own 
method  of  ascertainment,  and  of  the  nature  of  its 
proof.  To  our  dying  day  the  wisest  one  of  us  all 
will  have  to  take  on  the  authority  of  others  the 
major  part  of  what  he  may  properly  claim  to 
know.    But  as  much  as  possible,  the  ones  among  us 


THE   EQUIPMENT   OF   THE   TEACHER         177 

who  are  ambitious  to  have  a  knowledge  worthy  to 
be  called  scientific,  will  wish  to  know  as  much  as 
possible,  how  these  very  authorities  came  to  know 
what  they  claim  to  know;  and  upon  what  measure 
and  kind  of  evidence  their  claim  can  be  reposed. 

For  the  professional  teacher,  however,  it  is  an 
especially  valuable  quality  of  the  knowledge  that 
is  well  and  thoroughly  possessed,  that  it  is  usually 
''communicable"  knowledge.  If  we  are  to  impart 
knowledge  to  others,  our  own  knowing  must  be  in 
the  form,  so  to  say,  of  a  transmissible  possession. 
In  saying  this,  however,  I  do  not  in  any  way  con- 
tradict, or  abate  in  value,  what  was  formerly  said 
about  the  psychological  truth  that  the  transmission 
of  knowledge  requires  that  the  person  to  whom  the 
transfer  is  made,  shall  bear  an  important  active 
part  in  the  entire  process.  For  education  involves 
a  species  of  conduct  in  which  two  persons  are 
involved  in  almost  equally  important  ways. 

I  bring  the  treatment  of  this  subject  to  a  close 
by  speaking  briefly  of  some  of  the  more  important 
ways  in  which  the  teacher 's  equipment  of  knowledge 
is  of  practical  use  in  the  discharge  of  the  work  of 
teaching.  The  professional  teacher  in  the  school- 
room, like  the  professional  teacher  in  the  pulpit 
or  on  the  judge's  bench,  or  on  the  political  plat- 
form, may  easily  proclaim,  as  tho  he  knew  it  to 
be  true,  a  great  deal  which  really  is  not  true.  And 
no  doubt  in  each  of  these  three  cases,  the  pretense 


178    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

of  knowledge  will  go  some  distance  toward  making 
up  for  the  lack  of  real  knowledge.  Perhaps,  also,  in 
neither  of  these  cases  is  the  saying  of  our  greatest 
American  wit  always  applicable :  "It  is  better  not 
to  know  so  much,  than  to  know  so  much  that  isn't 
so."  But  I  wish  to  call  your  attention  to  certain 
considerations  which  lie  deeper  than  any  that 
may  be  appealed  to  in  these  ways. 

The  true  possession  and  judicious  use  of  knowl- 
edge makes  the  teacher  influential  as  an  inspiring 
example.  Many  a  young  mind  is  stimulated  in 
this  manner,  to  a  practical  admiration  for  knowl- 
edge, and  to  an  active  ambition  to  attain  knowledge, 
like  that  which  he  sees,  or  imagines  his  teacher  to 
possess.  To  see  that  knowledge  is  power,  as  the 
maxim  is  illustrated  in  a  personal  example,  is 
better  than  to  listen  to  the  verbal  reiteration  of  the 
maxim. 

It  is  the  possession  of  knowledge  about  any  sub- 
ject, which  strongly  tends  to  make  just  that  subject 
most  interesting  to  both  teacher  and  pupil.  There 
is  no  subject  so  dry  and  meager,  nothing  in  exis- 
tence so  simple,  that  the  wisest  of  us  may  not  always 
be  learning  something  new  about  it.  The  more  we 
know,  the  more  there  is  to  know;  and  the  more 
that  it  seems  worth  our  while  to  know.  The 
flower,  the  tree,  the  stone,  the  bird's  ^gg,  the  written 
or  spoken  word,  the  history  of  the  village  or  of  the 
country  at  large^  the  customs  and  laws  of  domestic, 


TEE  EQUIPMENT   OF   THE   TEACHER         179 

social,  and  political  life — this  increase  of  interest 
as  the  result  of  an  increase  of  knowledge  is  true  of 
all  these  subjects. 

But  the  possession  of  knowledge  also  enables 
the  teacher  to  make,  especially  of  the  older  pupils, 
compa.  lions  in  his  search  after  more  and  more  accu- 
rate knowledge.  Knowing  what  is  already  known, 
we  know  the  better  where  to  look  in  order  to  dis- 
cover, perhaps,  what  has  thus  far  been  unknown— 
by  ourselves  at  least,  or  possibly  even  by  the  race. 
Nothing  stimulates  and  pleases  the  pupil  more  than 
to  find  out  something  for  himself.  This  is  true  of 
even  young  and  immature  minds.  It  gives  the  joy 
of  discovery  and  of  achievement.  With  the  infant, 
it  is  a  pleasure  to  find  that  paper  will  tear,  that 
the  toy  trumpet  will  make  a  noise,  and  that  the  toy 
balloon  will  rise  in  the  air.  It  is  an  important  part 
of  the  knowledge  of  the  scientific  expert  to  know 
what  it  is  that  is  not  known,  and  where  to  look  for 
the  unknown,  if  haply  he  may  find  it.  Thus  his 
knowledge  becomes  more  serviceable  as  an  equip- 
ment for  success  in  his  professional  work. 


LECTUBE  IX 

THE  EQUIPMENT  OF  THE  TEACHER: 
AS  RIGHT  USE  OF  METHOD 

Nothing  is  more  obvious  than  that,  however 
well  equipped  the  teacher  may  be,  both  as  respects 
personal  character  and  as  respects  the  kind  and 
degree  of  his  knowledge,  unless  he  knows  how  to 
make  use  of  his  equipment,  he  can  not  attain  a  high 
success  in  his  work.  But  when  we  begin  to  dis- 
cuss the  ** methodology"  of  education,  we  come  at 
once  upon  almost  endlessly  debatable  grounds.  It 
was  long,  long  ago  pointed  out,  even  by  the  great 
Greek  philosopher,  Aristotle,  that  each  science  has, 
on  account  of  its  very  nature  as  a  particular  science, 
a  method  largely  peculiar  to  itself.  It  was  indeed, 
in  justification  of  the  treatment  which  he  himself 
was  proposing  to  give  to  the  science  of  ethics,  that 
this  thinker  made  his  observation  with  regard  to 
the  doctrine  of  method  in  general.  But  we  are  pro- 
posing to  treat  of  all  the  topics  brought  up  for  dis- 
cussion, from  the  dominantly  ethical  point  of  view. 
Still  further:  The  work  of  the  teacher,  as  we  are 
viewing  it,  is  rather  an  art  than  an  applied  science. 
And  the  theorizer  who  attempts  to  enforce  any  very 
definite  and  strict  doctrines  of  method,  for  the 

180 


THE  EQUIPMENT  OF  THE  TEACHER         181 

governance  of  every  individual  artist,  is  undertak- 
ing a  task  which  I  do  not  covet,  and  upon  which  I 
should  hesitate  to  venture. 

Let  me,  then,  preface  the  few  suggestions  which  I 
intend,  with  becoming  modesty,  afterward  to  make, 
by  these  two  remarks.  In  the  first  place:  It  is 
difficult  or  impossible  for  the  teacher,  who  is  well 
equipped  with  a  knowledge  of  his  subject,  and  who 
has  the  purposes  and  the  ideals  of  a  truly  noble 
character,  to  go  wholly  wrong  in  the  use  of  educa- 
tional method.  He  may  not  adopt  your  most 
approved  method,  or  mine;  he  may  sometimes 
startle  his  superior  officer,  or  the  Board  of  Educa- 
tion which  has  appointed  him;  he  may  even  dis- 
please some  one  of  those  very  wise  men  who  are 
presiding  over  the  colleges  and  universities  of  the 
country;  and  yet  he  may  be  using  what  for  him  is 
a  very  good,  if  not  the  absolutely  best,  method.  In 
the  majority  of  cases,  however,  it  is  the  part  of 
wisdom  to  give  a  large  liberty  to  the  individual 
teacher,  with  respect  to  the  selection  and  use  of 
his  own  particular  way  of  doing  his  professional 
work.  He  is  likely  to  know  what  he  wants  to  do 
with  his  pupils;  what  has  been  either  well  or  ill 
done  in  his  own  case  and  by  his  own  teachers ;  and 
from  this  knowledge,  there  follows,  almost  of  neces- 
sity, a  certain  amount  of  experimenting  which 
finally  results  in  the  acquirement  of  a  fair  amount 
of  personal  skill. 


182    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

But,  second,  it  is  not  possible  to  teach,  or  even 
to  determine  for  one's  self  what  is,  precisely,  the 
best  method,  for  every  subject,  for  every  class,  for 
every  individual  teacher.  Such  a  ''universal"  ( ?) 
method  is  only  to  be  approximately  and  progress- 
ively attained  by  a  long  course  of  experimenting, 
with  the  result  of  acquired  tact  and  varied  adapta- 
bility. Hence,  for  the  individual  teacher  there  is 
no  escape  from  a  course  of  experimenting  in  which 
the  three  elements,  of  Self,  pupils,  and  subject,  all 
have  to  be  combined  in  ever  varying  proportions. 
Hence,  too,  the  propriety  of  a  large  amount  of  wise 
letting-alone  on  the  part  of  the  superior  authority. 
Those  who  appoint,  and  those  who  superintend, 
should  judiciously  refrain  from  too  much  inter- 
ference, or  even  minute  instruction,  not  to  say, 
dictation— as  to  how  the  individual  teacher  should 
do  his  work. 

I  repeat,  then,  that  it  is  by  no  means  in  a  self- 
confident,  but  rather  in  a  deprecatory  w^ay,  that  I 
venture  to  lay  down  a  few  principles,  and  make  a 
few  suggestions,  with  regard  to  the  use  of  right 
method  as,  undoubtedly,  an  essential  part  of  the 
teacher's  equipment.  And,  now,  at  once  I  hark 
back  to  my  original  point  of  view — ^namely,  that 
the  work  of  the  professional  teacher  is  essentially 
a  matter  of  personal  intercourse;  it  should,  there- 
fore, be  controlled  by  the  moral  considerations 
which  regulate  all  personal  intercourse. 


TEE   EQUIPMENT   OF  THE   TEACHER         183 

But  right  method  in  teaching  also  depends  upon 
the  personality  of  the  pupil— the  one  to  be  taught. 
If  this  principle  could  have  full  control,  it  would 
provide,  of  course,  for  the  careful  study  of  each 
individual  case,  with  a  view  to  ascertain  just  how 
that  particular  individual  can  be  awakened, 
directed,  informed,  developed,  and  made  into  an 
enlightened,  sound,  and  noble  character.  Any 
physical  disabilities,  due  to  defective  eyesight,  mal- 
nutrition, or  obscure  forms  of  disease,  would  have 
to  be  sought  out  and  subjected  to  the  most  expert 
treatment.  The  length  and  difficulty  of  the  lessons 
would  have  to  be  nicely  adapted  to  each  person  as 
a  somewhat  separate  case.  The  method  of  instruc- 
tion—whether object-lesson,  oral  instruction,  or  the 
text-book — would  need  to  be  selected  and  changed 
according  to  the  pace  set  by  this  particular  individ- 
ual. Such  a  minute  adaptation  of  method  to  the 
individual  pupil  is  an  ideal,  at  present  very  remote 
from  realization,  if  indeed  it  can  ever  be  realized. 
And  perhaps,  it  is  well  that  it  is  never  likely  to  be 
realized  in  any  public  system  of  education.  For  its 
working  might  have  to  be  gained  at  the  cost  of  some 
of  the  benefits  of  class  exercises,  and  of  rubbing 
hard  against  a  multitude  of  other  individuals — 
other  pupils  and  other  teachers— who  are  neither 
able  nor  disposed  to  treat  us  as  though  we  were  the 
only  individuals  on  whom  their  special  care  is  to  be 
bestowed. 


184    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY, 

At  the  same  time,  I  am  convinced  that,  in  our 
doctrine  of  method,  and  in  our  practise,  we  ought 
more  constantly  to  bear  in  mind  the  truth,  that 
every  pupil  is,  and  always  must  be,  in  some  real 
sort,  a  special  problem  on  which  to  exercise  our 
skill.  This  is  the  truth  by  virtue  of  the  individ- 
uality of  every  human  being  that  ever  has  been,  is 
now,  or  ever  will  be.  The  very  nature  of  this  indi- 
viduality is  to  be  an  exceedingly  subtle  and  com- 
plex mixture  of  intellectual  qualities,  emotions  and 
sentiments,  and  characteristics  of  the  voluntary  and 
motor  sort.  For  this  reason,  different  pupils  will 
be  stirred  and  lead  by  quite  different  sorts  of 
appeal;  some  by  appeal  to  intellectual  curiosity; 
some  by  appeal  to  imagination;  some  by  enforced 
or  prompted  exercise  of  memory;  and  some  by  an 
appeal  to  pride,  or  shame,  or  ambition,  or  the 
sentiment  of  loyalty,  the  sense  of  duty,  or  respon- 
sibility to  God.  So  do  the  intellectual  appetites  of 
the  individual  boy  or  girl  differ  enormously.  And 
in  saying  this,  I  do  not  refer  to  those  marks  of 
extraordinary  talents,  those  suggestions  of  a  possible 
genius,  or  those  eccentricities  and  abnormalities, 
for  the  culture  or  eradication  of  which  no  definite 
rules  can  be  given.  But  just  plain  and  so-called 
** ordinary"  boys  and  girls  differ  enormously.  They 
are,  indeed,  members  of  the  human  species,  and  as 
such  much  more  like  the  lowest  savages  or  the  so- 
called  ''primitive  men*'  of  the  same  race,  than 


THE  EQUIPMENT  OF  TEE   TEACHER         186 

they  are  like  either  animals  or  angels.  But  they 
are  individuals ;  and  in  the  human  species,  individ- 
uality customarily  means  indefinitely  more  than  it 
can  mean  in  the  case  of  any  of  the  animal  species. 
Again,  it  is  a  well  recognized  maxim  that  the  suit- 
able method  of  teaching  is  largely  conditioned  by 
the  stage  of  the  pupil's  development.  But  this  is  a 
consideration  to  which  I  shall  return  in  another 
connection. 

Equally  true  is  it,  that  the  teacher  must  regard 
his  own  personal  characteristics  as  entitled,  to  a 
certain  extent,  to  shape  the  method  of  his  teaching ; 
and  to  do  this  advantageously.  Not  all  teachers  can 
teach  their  best,  in  precisely  the  same  way.  Let 
it  be  granted  that  I  was  wrong  when  I  said ;  * '  From 
the  purely  theoretical  point  of  view,  there  can 
never  be  a  precise  applied  science  of  methodology 
in  education."  Still  it  would  remain  true  as  a 
matter  of  practise  that  we  could  never  hope  to  get 
the  best  possible  results  from  every  individual 
teacher  by  enforcing  conformity  in  any  strict  way 
to  the  rules  of  such  a  theoretically  correct  method- 
ology. Adjustments  to  the  personal  peculiarities, 
physical  and  mental  and  moral,  and  compromises 
required  by  varying  conditions  of  age,  sex,  and 
economic  and  social  influences  and  environment, 
would  still  make  necessary  differences  of  method, 
with  different  teachers,  even  with  the  same  subjects 
and  the  same  classes  of  pupils.  The  Socratic  method 


186    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

did  great  things  toward  the  awakening  of  thought 
and  the  eliciting  of  truth,  as  employed  by  its  great 
master  and  his  yet  greater  pupil,  Plato.  But  some 
of  the  weakest  and  silliest  work  which  I  have  ever 
known  done,  has  been  the  result  of  an  attempt  on 
the  part  of  aspiring  young  teachers,  who  might 
have  been  fairly  successful  in  other  ways,  to  handle 
the  ''Socratic  method. '^ 

These  considerations  lead  our  minds  at  once  to 
the  thought  of  certain  rights  and  certain  duties 
which  attach  themselves  to  the  office  of  the  profes- 
sional teacher,  and  in  which  every  individual 
teacher  is  entitled  to  some  share.  The  teacher  has 
a  right,  which  may  not  be  forfeited,  to  a  certain 
amount  of  freedom  for  the  expression  of  his  own 
personality  in  the  method  which  he  employs.  But 
as  the  complement,  not  the  contradictory,  of  this, 
is  the  teacher's  duty  of  self-control,  with  a  view  to 
bring  himself  into  line,  and  to  keep  himself  in  line, 
with  the  requirements  of  the  government,  or  of  the 
social  and  educational  environment,  by  which  the 
nature  and  success  of  his  work  must  be  so  largely 
determined.  Of  what  avail  is  his  pet  method  if, 
after  having  been  given  a  fair  trial,  it  will  not 
work? 

We  see,  then,  how  complex  is  this  problem  of 
method  in  teaching.  As  viewed  from  the  point  of 
view  which  regards  teaching  as  a  species  of  per- 
sonal intercourse,   the   best   results   can   only   be 


THE   EQUIPMENT   OF  THE   TEACHER         187 

reached  and  estimated,  when  we  have  taken  into 
our  account,  (1)  the  individual  characteristics  of 
the  pupil;  (2)  the  individual  characteristics  of  the 
teacher;  (3)  the  conventionalities  and  customs 
regulated  by  the  social  or  governmental  establish- 
ment, so  to  say. 

In  the  stricter  meaning  of  the  word  it  may  well 
be  doubted  whether  any  doctrine  of  pedagogic 
method  can  properly  be  called  a  *' science.'^  But 
perhaps  a  more  genial,  if  loose  view  of  the  term 
might  justify  its  use  in  this  connection.  At  any 
rate,  it  may  surely  be  assumed  that  the  experience 
of  the  race  has  established  certain  principles  of 
procedure  with  which  all  the  practical  work  of 
education  ought  to  be  in  accord.  It  is,  of  course, 
impossible  for  us  in  a  single  lecture  to  discuss 
these  principles  with  any  thoroughness;  or  even 
to  propose  them  with  a  claim  to  completeness.  But 
they  all  seem  to  me  to  be  capable  of  being  fairly 
well  summarized  in  the  following  comprehensive, 
if  rather  loose  statement:  "The  method  of  edu- 
cation should  accord  with  the  order,  and  the  laws, 
of  man 's  psychological  development. ' '  This  is  only 
to  say  that  the  training  of  the  human  species,  like 
the  training  of  all  living  growths,  while  it  is 
designed  to  improve  nature,  must  take  the  clues 
to  its  proper  procedure,  from  nature.  The  aim 
of  education  is  not  to  substitute  the  artificial  for 
the  natural,  but  by  furnishing  favorable  environ- 


188    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

ment,  by  suitable  nourishment,  and  by  judicious 
pruning,  to  assist  nature  into  a  nearer  conformity 
to  its  own  most  nearly  perfect  type. 

What  education  tries  to  effect  is  a  genuine  and 
worthy  psychological  development,  or  unfolding  of 
the  active  powers  of  a  human  soul,  or  mind.  Its 
correct  and  successful  method  must,  therefore,  fol- 
low the  course  set  by  the  very  nature  of  the  subject 
of  development.  Since  human  mental  development 
is,  in  spite  of  occasional  crises  or  epoch-making 
experiences,  on  the  whole  a  fairly  continuous  affair, 
changes  of  the  method  employed  to  further  this 
development  should,  in  general,  not  be  abrupt. 

The  right  method  in  teaching  also  depends  upon 
the  age,  and  stage  in  development,  of  the  person 
to  be  taught.  There  should  be  a  gradual,  and 
almost  imperceptible  change,  as  the  pupil  climbs 
into  the  higher  stages  of  culture.  The  earlier  stages 
tolerate  and  require  more  of  teaching  with  author- 
ity; the  later  authorize  and  demand  more  of  rea- 
soning and  of  the  methods  which  stimulate  and 
answer  the  questions:  **How  so?''  and,  **Why?'' 
The  young  child  may  be  told :  *  *  It  i5  so '  * ;  or,  *  *  This 
is  the  way  the  thing  should  properly  be  done. ' '  To 
attempt  to  give  the  uneducated  mind  the  evidence 
and  the  reasons  for  all  it  is  set  to  learn,  or  to  allow 
the  untrained  impulses  to  decide  what  order  shall 
be  kept,  or  how  much  work  shall  be  done,  in  the 
schoolroom,  is  even  more  out  of  place  than  the 


THE   EQUIPMENT   OF   THE   TEACHER         189 

effort  to  force  the  convictions,  and  deny  the  right 
to  research,  of  the  mature  graduate  or  professional 
student.  Even  in  the  latter  case,  the  teacher  has 
no  easy  problem  to  solve,  when  he  tries  to  prepare 
the  right  mixture  of  instruction  with  authority  and 
self-initiated  or  self-conducted  work.  On  the 
whole,  however,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  both  our 
kindergartens  and  our  graduate  and  professional 
laboratories,  seminars,  clubs,  and  lecture  courses, 
are  conducted  with  too  little  strictness  of  discipline, 
and  too  great  looseness  of  the  sense  of  responsibility 
on  the  pupils '  part.  In  these  important  qualities,  I 
am  doubtful  whether  our  national  system  of  educa- 
tion, both  higher  and  lower,  is  as  successful  as  it 
was  a  generation  ago. 

The  stage  in  education  which  tolerates  and  re- 
quires more  of  teaching  with  authority,  is  also  the 
stage  of  plastic  memory  and  moldable  opinions 
and  judgments.  This  greatly  favors  the  success 
of  the  skilful  and  conscientious  teacher  who  can 
capture  his  pupils  at  this  stage.  The  teachers  of 
the  public  schools  of  the  primary  grade  are  espe- 
cially to  be  congratulated  on  this  account.  They 
have  the  best  and  most  hopeful  places  of  all.  They 
ought  to  have  equal  equipment,  and  equal  reward 
in  gratitude  and  in  wages.  Given  these  latter  in- 
ducements, which  will,  I  suppose,  always  count 
heavily  as  inducements,  until  quite  purely  celes- 
tial conditions  prevail  on  earth,  I  should  be  unable 


190    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

to  see  why  we  should  not  all  prefer  to  teach  the 
children,  with  their  comparative  moldable  char- 
acters and  impressible  minds  rather  than  the  some- 
what literally  "hardened  youth"  of  both  sexes  in 
the  colleges  and  so-called  universities  of  the 
country. 

Of  this  plastic  stage  of  memory  and  judgment 
the  method  of  instruction  makes  account,  both  by 
taking  advantage  of  the  tendency  to  imitation  and 
by  furnishing  good  examples  for  imitation;  by 
storing  the  plastic  memory  with  facts  and  object 
lessons;  and  also  by  shaping  judgment  and  opin- 
ion through  the  influence  of  precepts  and  constantly 
corrected  habits  of  conduct.  Extremes  are  erron- 
eous and  dangerous  to  all  correct  method  with 
pupils  of  all  ages  and  in  all  stages  of  the  educative 
process.  Too  much  show  of  logic  and  too  great 
failure  to  appeal  to  the  reasoning  faculty;  too 
much  talk  and  too  strict  adherence  to  the  policy  of 
silence  in  order  to  compel  the  pupil  to  find  out  for 
himself;  too  great  attempt  at  compulsion  and  too 
great  allowance  of  so-called  liberty,  of  whatever 
sort;  too  hard  lessons  and  too  much  indulgence  of 
pupils  who  are  disinclined  to  lessons  of  any  length 
at  all— these,  and  similar  errors  on  both  of  the 
opposite  sides,  are  alike  inconsistent  with  the  prac- 
tise of  the  best  method.  But  just  where  is  the  line 
that  separates  the  **too  much"  from  the  **too  lit- 
tle," the  ''too  great"  from  the  "too  small,"  in 


THE   EQUIPMENT   OF   THE    TEACHER         191 

each  particular  case  ?  Ah !  this  I  can  not  tell  you. 
And  there  is  really  no  source  but  heaven  for  the 
answer  to  this  question.  And  heaven  is  not  going 
to  answer  all  questions  of  this  sort  for  you  or  for 
me ;  or  even  for  some  much  more  pretentious  writer 
on  so-called  pedagogy.  We  must  all  try,  and  exper- 
iment, and  blunder,  and  learn  from  our  blunders 
—all  the  time  making  some  progress,  while  ex- 
pecting never  to  attain  perfection.  But  after  all, 
single  mistakes  in  diagnosis  or  prescription  on  our 
part  do  not  kill  the  patient  as  similar  mistakes  of 
the  doctor  or  the  druggist  may;  nor  do  we  often 
need  to  defend  ourselves  as  did  the  physician  who, 
when  he  was  accused  of  malpractise,  retorted. 
"When  I  treat  a  patient  for  disease  of  the  liver, 
he  always  dies  of  disease  of  the  liver." 

The  right  use  of  means  also  depends  upon  the 
specific  character  of  the  means  available.  All 
methods,  or  ways  of  using  the  means  of  instruction 
may  be  reduced  to  three  classes.  These  are  The 
Oral  Word,  The  Written  Word  and  The  Object 
Lesson.  The  right  method  for  the  teacher  employs 
the  oral  word,  or  speech,  in  the  function  of  teach- 
ing from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  stages  of  the 
pupil's  development.  At  first,  the  word  is  simple, 
easily  intelligible  to  thought,  although  always  stim- 
ulating to  more  thought  in  order  the  better  to 
grasp  its  meaning,  and  arranged  in  sentences  that 
convey  instruction  by  stimulating  interest,  and  mak- 


192    TEE  TEACHEB*8  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

ing  much  use  of  figures  of  speech.  From  this  earlier 
stage  onward,  the  oral  method  follows  the  order 
of  the  learner's  psychological  development,  until 
it  becomes  the  elaborate  scientific  lecture,  or  the 
searching  discussion  of  the  seminar,  or  the  quiz  as 
to  the  results  obtained  by  the  laboratory  method, 
making  use  of  technical  terms  and  relying  on  the 
hearer's  interest  for  its  instructive  force  and  effect. 
Speech  is  the  way  of  teaching,  par  excellence.  But 
genuine  oral  instruction  is  very  different  from 
mere  talking,  and,  indeed,  from  every  other  form  of 
address.  Its  primary  object  is  not  to  arouse  inter- 
est. It  must  presuppose  interest,  that  is  to  be 
aroused  beforehand  and  in  some  other  way.  Its 
primary  office,  and  the  aim  which  it  should  never 
for  an  instant  lose  out  of  mind,  is  to  impart  instruc- 
tion— that  is,  to  teach  in  the  most  definite  meaning 
of  the  word.  There  is  many  a  brilliant  and  inter- 
esting lecturer  who  fails  almost  completely  of  the 
primal  purpose  of  speech  as  a  method  of  instruction, 
because  his  hearers  have  little  or  no  more  real 
knowledge  of  the  subject,  on  account  of  what  their 
teacher  has  said.  On  the  other  hand,  setting  les- 
sons in  text-books  and  hearing  lessons  recited  is  not, 
in  itself  considered  and  properly  speaking,  teach- 
ing at  all.  After  helping  a  lad  of  fourteen,  who 
was  constantly  falling  behind  in  the  knowledge  and 
correct  use  of  English,  to  get  a  lesson  in  grammar, 
and  finding  that  my  colleague,  learned  in  philology 


THE  EQUIPMENT   OF  THE   TEACHER         193 

and  literature  could  not  answer  any  of  the  linguistic 
puzzles  which  the  getting  of  the  lesson  required,  I 
was  entirely  ready  to  sympathize  with  the  exasper- 
ated mother  who  wrote  a  note  to  her  son^s  teacher 
asking  her  if  she  would  not  exchange  offices,  and 
let  the  mother  give  out  the  lessons  and  the  teacher 
do  some  of  the  teaching.  In  all  stages  of  the  edu- 
cative process,  and  with  all  classes  of  pupils,  the 
use  of  the  oral  method  makes  the  largest  possible 
demands  upon  the  teacher,  for  even  a  moderately 
satisfactory  result  of  either  of  the  three  methods  to 
which  reference  has  just  been  made.  It  is  indis- 
pensable, however,  and  worthy  of  a  lifetime  of 
study  and  of  toil,  even  to  master  this  method 
enough  to  obtain  a  fair  measure  of  its  inestimably 
valuable  results.  It  is  always  worth  remembering, 
also,  that  it  is  chiefly  by  the  use  of  the  oral  method 
that  the  teacher  comes  into  those  peculiar  personal 
relations  with  the  pupil  in  which  his  function  as 
teacher  chiefly  consists.  We  remember  what  our 
teachers  said  to  us  rather  than  just  what  were  the 
lessons  they  gave  out  to  us  from  the  text-books 
which  happened  to  be  in  use. 

But  the  completely  successful  method  must  also 
employ  the  written  word  in  accordance  with  the 
order  and  the  laws  of  a  true  psychological  devel- 
opment. At  first,  the  lesson  given  out  for  reading 
or  study  is  the  simple  story,  the  brief  description  of 
the  most  obvious  characteristics  of  things,  the  few 


194    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

and  easily  understood  maxims  telling  children  what 
they  ought  to  do  and  what  not  to  do,  the  easily 
intelligible  statements  of  what  is  true  in  fact  and 
in  opinion,  and  of  what  is  not  true.  From  this 
low  beginning  the  use  of  the  written  word  ascends 
to  the  study  of  the  more  technical  and  elaborate 
text-books,  or  other  treatises,  upon  all  the  different 
particular  sciences,  to  the  reading  and  critical 
appreciation  of  the  masterpieces  of  literature,  and 
to  the  reflective  perusal  of  the  more  profound  and 
abstruse  works  on  mathematics  and  philosophy. 

In  this  connection  I  wish  to  refer  again  to  the 
lamentably  low  condition  of  the  appetite  and  diges- 
tion, even  among  the  educated  classes,  for  hard 
reading  and  prolonged  study  of  thorough  and 
solid  books.  In  spite  of  the  increase  in  quantity 
and  excellence  of  the  various  forms  of  ephemeral 
and  journalistic  literature— if,  indeed,  it  can  be 
called  'literature,*'  as  some  of  it  doubtless  may — 
it  was  never  truer  than  it  is  today  that  the  best 
learning  and  worthiest  thought  of  the  race  are  to 
be  found  only  in  written  records  of  the  type  least 
popular  at  the  present  time.  No  one  who  does  not 
make  the  principal  part  of  his  reading  consist  of 
such  books  can  be  a  genuine  scholar,  or  be  fitted 
to  teach  in  the  very  best  manner  any  of  the  partic- 
ular subjects  of  which  these  books  treat.  The  evils 
of  the  too  exclusive  reading  of  the  other  sort  of 
books,  of  the  popular  and  almost  universal  ex- 


THB   EQUIPMENT   OF   THE   TEACHER         195 

eessive  devotion  to  the  novels  of  the  season, 
the  magazines  of  the  month,  and  to  the  papers 
of  the  day,  have  been  so  often  but  so  vainly- 
deplored  by  the  champions  of  good  literature  and  of 
a  sound  and  serviceable  education,  that  I  do  not 
need  to  dwell  upon  the  mental  and  moral  evils 
engendered  in  this  way.  But  there  is  one  aspect 
of  the  general  subject  which  has  a  very  special 
interest  for  us  as  teachers,  and  an  exceedingly 
important,  but  not  at  all  sufficiently  recognized, 
bearing  upon  our  work  as  teachers.  This  is  the 
character  of  the  text-books  which  we  are  required 
or  permitted  to  use.  Here,  again,  the  evils  con- 
nected with  their  injudicious,  incompetent,  or 
bribed  selection,  have  been  often,  but  as  yet  scarcely 
effectively  exposed  and  denounced.  Again,  how- 
ever, it  is  not  of  evils  connected  with  the  way  of 
''introducing"  text-books  into  our  pubilc  schools 
that  I  am  now  going  to  speak.  At  present  I  have, 
the  rather,  in  mind  certain  indirect  and  collateral 
evils  connected  with  what,  as  looked  at  from  a 
certain  point  of  view,  may  be  regarded  as  an 
entirely  worthy  endeavor — the  endeavor,  namely, 
to  make  the  subject  attractive  and  easy  for  the 
pupil  to  get  as  a  lesson.  I  will  take  the  same  illus- 
tration which  I  have  already  used ;  it  is  the  method 
employed  by  the  student  of  the  classical  or  the 
modern  languages  to  determine  the  meaning 
of    a    word    in    the    text    he    is    reading.      If 


196    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

he  looks  up  the  word  in  a  large  general  lexi- 
con of  the  language,  selects  out  of  two-score 
other  meanings  the  particular  one  which  he  judges 
best  to  fit  the  context,  fits  it  in  himself  so  as  to 
combine  literalness  with  elegance  and  grammati- 
cal accuracy,  as  well  as  he  can  in  his  present  stage 
of  knowledge,  he  gets  a  valuable  training  in  the 
science  and  art  of  language — the  highest  and 
noblest  expression  of  human  thought  and  feeling— 
which  he  can  obtain  in  no  other  way.  If,  on  the 
contrary,  he  just  takes  the  word  that  some  one 
else  tells  him  to  take,  as  set  down  in  a  note,  vocab- 
ulary, or  **pony,''  he  gets  little  or  nothing  at  all 
which  is  good,  but  on  the  contrary  an  increase  to 
his  native  disinclination  to  work  for  his  own  mental 
living,  and  an  encouragement  to  habits  of  idleness 
and  shirking.  But  it  is  not  in  the  study  of  the 
languages  alone  that  the  too  exclusive  use  of  "pre- 
digested  food"  has  tended  to  make  a  race  of  stu- 
dents that  is  loath  to  eat  anything  which  requires 
considerable  chewing  as  the  first  thing  in  the  pro- 
cess of  self -digestion.  Is  it  coming  about  that  reli- 
ance must  be  placed  on  the  moving-picture  show 
rather  than  on  the  study  of  the  written  word  under 
the  leadership  of  inspiring  personalities,  for  the 
mental,  moral,  and  religious  education  of  the  com- 
mon people?  It  has  already  come  about  that  a 
large,  and,  it  is  to  be  feared,  an  increasing  propor- 
tion of  our  university  and  college  graduates  are 


THE  EQUIPMENT   OF  THE   TEAOHER         197 

turned  out  utterly  incapable  of  doing  ''hard  read- 
ing" in  the  technical  meaning  which  the  scholar 
at  Oxford  or  Cambridge  or  Edinburgh  in  Great 
Britain  attaches  to  those  words.  Evidently,  then, 
we  must  find  some  improved  way  to  cultivate  the 
capacity,  and  enforce  the  obligation,  of  the  serious 
study  of  thorough  and  solid  books,  if  we  would  re- 
cover the  most  effective  use  of  the  written  word  as 
a  means  of  instruction  rather  than  of  entertainment 
simply. 

In  the  third  place,  the  teacher's  right  method 
makes  use  of  the  means  afforded  by  the  real  Object, 
at  every  stage  of  the  pupil 's  development.  Indeed, 
object-teaching  is  in  certain  respects,  more  nearly 
the  universal  method  than  either  of  the  two  other 
methods.  To  see  for  one's  self  what  the  thing  is— 
this  is  the  need  of  every  child,  and  of  every 
mature  man  of  science.  To  bring  about  this,  how- 
ever, it  is  not  necessary— in  teaching  botany,  for 
example— that  the  school  children  should  be  en- 
couraged to  exterminate  the  wild  violets,  or  moun- 
tain laurel,  or  native  rhododendrons,  of  the  entire 
neighborhood.  The  teacher  who  knows  how  can 
give  more  instruction  by  showing  and  explaining 
one  specimen,  than  by  lauding  a  dozen  pupils  for 
the  extraordinary  amount  of  plunder  brought  in 
at  one  time  from  the  nearest  woods.  Nor  do  I  think 
it  necessary  to  rid  the  whole  neighborhood  of  its 
pet  cats— although  this  is  by  no  means  always  an 


198    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

undesirable  result— in  the  interests  of  the  depart- 
ment of  biology.  The  skilful  dissection  of  one  by 
the  teacher  may  result  in  a  much  greater  growth 
to  an  elementary  knowledge  of  anatomy  and  phy- 
siology than  the  mangling  of  a  dozen  by  two  or 
three  times  as  many  pupils. 

Here  again,  teaching  by  example  is  much  to  be 
commended.  To  behold,  admire  and  follow  the  man 
who  is  an  inspiring  example  of  the  skill  of  the 
artizan,  or  the  artist,  or  of  a  morally  worthy  and 
noble  character,  is  to  make  use  of  a  most  efficient 
means  of  self -development.  The  object  lesson  is  a 
specially  potent  means  in  control  by  the  teacher  who 
wishes  for  the  highest  success  in  the  most  important 
of  his  functions,  as  the  shaper  of  a  sound  and 
noble  character. 

It  is  especially  in  view  of  the  importance  of  a 
study  of  right  method  that  the  value  of  psychol- 
ogy, or  the  science  of  the  nature  and  development  of 
man's  conscious  life,  becomes  apparent.  This  fact 
of  a  fundamental  dependence  of  so-called  pedagogy 
upon  psychology,  can  never  be  reasonably  or  suc- 
cessfully denied.  And  why  should  it  not  be  so, 
according  to  the  principle  already  announced  and 
now  repeated:  All  right  method  in  teaching 
follows  the  normal  psychological  method  of 
human  development?  The  study  of  psychology, 
however  profound  and  however  prolonged,  will 
never  of  itself  guarantee  success  to  the  teacher. 


THE   EQUIPMENT   OF   THE   TEACHER         199 

But  rightly  pursued,  it  will  give  him  to  know 
what  he  is  about;  and  what  he  ought  to  be 
about.  Coupled  with  the  observing  eye,  the 
kindly  heart,  and  the  will  that  is  firm  in  its 
adherence  to  truth  and  righteousness,  it  will  make 
what  would  otherwise  be  unintelligible  and  wholly 
opportunist,  ripen  into  a  science  of  method.  And  if 
this  so-called  science  is  not  adapted  for  universal 
communication  and  use,  it  will  nevertheless  be  a 
specialist's  knowledge  of  the  ways  of  conducting 
the  Self,  and  of  the  reasons  for  those  ways,  in  the 
complicated  and  difficult  personal  relations  univer- 
sally maintaining  themselves  between  the  teacher 
and  his  pupils. 

After  all  has  been  said  that  can  truthfully  be 
said  about  pedagogic  method  from  the  alleged 
scientific  point  of  view,  it  must  be  confessed  that 
the  actual  practise  of  the  individual  teacher  can 
never  be  reduced  to  exact  scientific  formulas.  No 
one  teacher  can  dogmatically  teach  any  other 
teacher  precisely  how  he  or  she  ought  to  teach  in 
order  to  reach  the  best  results  possible  for  that 
particular  individual  under  a  given,  definite  set 
of  circumstances.  Each  ease  is  a  special  case;  is 
indeed  a  special  problem.  Success  in  this  problem 
depends  chiefly  upon  the  cultivated  tact  of  the 
person  whose  problem  it  is.  Now  the  thing  which 
we  call  ''Tacf  is  a  very  subtle  and  complex  thing. 
It   is   less   easy   to   deliver   from   one   person   to 


200    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

another,  or  even  to  cultivate  in  one  person  by  the 
aid  of  another,  than  knowledge  is.  Neither  knowl- 
edge nor  tact  can  be  made,  or  received,  as  a  gift. 
For  its  self -acquisition,  these  exhortations  combine 
all  that  I  am  prepared  to  say  at  present ;  although 
the  psychology  of  tact  remains  one  of  the  most 
promising  of  all  the  hitherto  unexplored  fields  of 
psychological  investigation.  First,  then,  cultivate 
the  person  who  is  to  practise  the  art.  Cultivate 
your  Self.  You  can  not  be  any  too  well  cultivated 
for  the  practise  of  your  profession,  whether  you  are 
teaching  in  the  kindergarten  or  in  the  graduate 
school  of  the  great  university.  Second :  Cultivate 
the  science  that  underlies  the  art.  This  is  the 
science  of  human  nature,  with  its  physical,  mental, 
moral,  and  spiritual  capacities  and  the  laws  of  their 
development.  And,  finally,  observe  and  experi- 
ment— thus  finding  your  own  way,  to  that  which  is 
for  you,  the  best  practise  of  the  difficult  and  honor- 
able art  of  teaching. 


Part  III 
THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER 


Ml 


LECTURE  X 

THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER: 
HIS  PUPIL'S  WELFARE 

Since  tlie  successful  teacher  is  not  only  a 
**knower,"  a  man  with  a  scientific  equipment,  but 
also  a  "doer/'  the  practiser  of  an  art,  he  must, 
like  every  other  true  artist,  have  his  helpful  and 
inspiring  ideals.  Indeed,  quite  as  much  as  in  the 
case  of  any  other  artist,  the  highest  success  of  the 
professional  teacher  is  dependent  upon  the  charac- 
ter, at  once  exalted  and  reasonable,  of  the  ideals 
which  he  ardently  cherishes  and  earnestly  pursues. 

Now,  there  has  been  of  late  a  rather  wide-spread- 
ing tendency  to  regard  lightly,  if  not  scornfully, 
the  insistence  upon  rational  ideals  for  the  control 
of  correct  practise.  The  attempt  has  even  been 
made  to  remove  the  practical  efforts  for  the  eco- 
nomic and  social  uplift  of  all  classes  from  under 
the  influence  of  the  ethical  ideals  which  may  claim 
the  right  to  suggest  and  to  enforce  them.  With 
these  attempts  in  general,  we  have  little  sympathy. 
But  whatever  may  be  said  in  their  favor  as  re- 
gards their  effect  upon  other  classes  of  workmen, 
they  are  peculiarly  inappropriate  when  recom- 
mended to  the  professional  teacher.    For  since  it 

203 


204    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

is  his  business  to  be  a  **knower"  as  well  as  a 
'*doer/'  the  science  of  his  art  includes  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  ideals  which  the  practise  is  trying, 
however  imperfectly,  to  realize. 

It  will  not  be,  then,  I  trust,  time  altogether  mis- 
spent, if  we  take  a  few  minutes  to  consider  the 
nature  of  ideals  in  general,  and  the  relations  they 
sustain  to  enlightened  and  successful  practise. 

An  ideal  is  a  construction  of  thought  and  imagi- 
nation—a mental  picture  of  what  ought  to  he,  but 
is  not  as  yet  completely  realized.  It  is  always,  of 
necessity,  constructed  upon  a  basis  of  fact ;  for  hu- 
man thought  and  imagination,  in  their  highest  and 
wildest  flights,  can  never  rise  entirely  above  influ- 
ences from  the  soil  and  atmosphere  of  earth.  And 
ideals  not  constructed  on  a  basis  of  experience  of 
actual  facts,  if  such  could  be  constructed  at  all, 
would  not  be  adapted  to  inspire  and  guide  our  ef- 
forts under  any  sort  of  earthly  conditions.  But 
there  is  no  conviction  of  human  nature  which  is 
more  firmly  fixed  or  more  influential  than  the  con- 
viction that  facts  do  not  conform  with  those  moral 
and  aesthetical  standards  to  which  man  finds  him- 
self assigning  a  value  that  is  something  more  than 
merely  instrumental.  And  man  feels  it  to  be  his 
duty  and  his  privilege  to  strive  for  a  larger  and 
yet  larger  conformity  between  the  ideal  and  the 
actual. 


TEE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       205 

But  every  ideal  is  itself  a  growth.  The  more 
we  ourselves  grow  toward  our  ideals,  the  farther 
away  from  us  do  these  same  ideals  seem  to  be.  This 
is  really,  however,  because  they  are  not  precisely  the 
same;  the  ideals  themselves  have  expanded  and 
risen  higher  in  the  scale  of  values.  Let  us  not  judge 
that  following  them  has  turned  out  like  chasing  the 
will-o-the-wisp,  or  trying  to  come  up  with  the  end 
of  the  rainbow,  where  the  pot  of  gold  lies  hidden. 
We  have  not  only  been  exercised  and  grown 
stronger  in  the  pursuit,  but  we  have  won  a  portion 
of  the  fortune  which  we  have  found  to  be  far 
greater  in  amount  and  value  than  we  had  dreamed 
it  to  be.  And  this  is  the  very  nature  of  an  ideal 
and  of  man  as  an  idealizing  animal. 

Ideals,  then,  become  the  sources  of  aspiration  and 
guidance  for  the  more  and  ever  more  successful 
realization  of  our  endeavors.  But  in  order  to 
serve  us  in  this  way,  they  must  neither  be  too  low 
nor  too  high,  in  the  level  at  which  we  keep  them.  If 
they  are  kept  too  low,  they  do  not  raise  us 
up  toward  them;  but  if  they  are  raised  too  high, 
they  are  likely  to  be  found  unfitted  for  our  guid- 
ance and  impracticable,  totally,  under  existing  con- 
ditions. Our  pursuit  of  our  ideals  must,  therefore, 
always  be  tempered  by  our  growing  experience. 
Then  they  stimulate,  inspire,  and  guide  us;  other- 
wise, they  may  depress,  discourage,  and  mislead 
us. 


206    THE  TEACHER'S  PBACTIOAL  PHILOSOPHY 

If  now  we  consider  what  has  been  said  about  the 
functions  and  the  equipment  of  the  teacher,  it  will 
be  apparent  that  each  one  of  these  functions,  and 
each  item  in  this  equipment,  is  capable  of  being 
idealized.  This  is  only  to  say  that  by  thinking,  and 
giving  some  healthy  play  to  the  imagination,  we 
may  easily  form  a  mental  picture  of  our  experience, 
as  more  nearly  perfect  than  it  now  actually  is.  By 
forming  such  a  picture  we  may  stimulate  and  guide 
ourselves  toward  a  truer  and  more  comprehensive 
success. 

Like  every  form  of  craft  or  art,  teaching  has, 
of  course,  aims  and  ideals  that  are  peculiarly  its 
own.  In  general,  the  teacher  *b  ideal  aim  is  to 
become  a  master  of  his  craft.  Or  if  we  regard  the 
profession  of  teaching  after  the  analogy  of  the  fine 
arts,  we  may  say  that  he  aims  to  become  an  artist 
of  merit,  because  capable  of  realizing  his  ideals,  in 
some  notable  manner,  in  the  practise  of  his  art. 
This  consideration  involves  an  appreciation  of  the 
value  of  his  ideal,  and  a  correspondingly  high  esti- 
mate of  the  value  of  his  craft  or  art.  To  be  a  good 
and  successful  teacher  must  seem  worth  while,  so  to 
say,  **for  its  own  sake.^'  The  teacher  can  not, 
indeed,  be  wholly  indifferent  to  salary,  or  social 
position,  or  the  grateful  recognition  of  his  pupils 
and  their  parents ;  but  to  win  these  rewards  ought 
not  to  be  his  sole,  or  even  his  chief,  design  in  choos- 
ing his   profession.     His   choice   should  also  be 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER        207 

prompted  and  fixed  by  a  high  estimate  of  the  value 
of  his  craft.  One  of  the  world's  greatest  teachers 
of  the  last  generation  was  a  certain  Japanese,  Mr. 
Fukuzawa  by  name.  During  his  entire  life,  this 
man  preferred  to  remain  a  teacher  rather  than 
accept  any  of  the  offers  of  appointment  to  what 
are  popularly  regarded  as  more  honorable  places  in 
the  service  of  the  state.  This  was  because  he  loved 
his  craft  and  set  a  high  estimate  upon  the  value  of 
success  in  its  pursuit.  It  is  a  misfortune  for  the 
teacher  not  to  love  to  teach,  and  not  to  hold  high 
ideals  of  the  worth  for  others  of  his  profession.  If 
there  were  not  certain  practical  obstacles  in  the 
way,  it  would  almost  seem  as  though  the  rule 
should  be  enacted,  to  employ  no  teachers— at  least, 
in  the  public  schools  of  the  land — who  did  not  love 
to  teach.  I  fear,  however,  that  under  such  a  ruling, 
it  would  be  extremely  difficult  to  keep  the  public 
schools  supplied  with  teachers  at  any  price  which 
the  tax-rate  would  bear.  But  enthusiasm  and 
affection  toward  the  work  are  surely  much  more  apt 
to  be  the  attitude  of  the  workman  in  the  craft,  who 
has  a  high  ideal  of  what  it  is  possible  to  accomplish 
by  the  successful  practise  of  the  craft.  You  will, 
perhaps,  remember  that  Plato  described  the  proper 
attitude  of  the  student  of  philosophy  as  *'Eros/' 
an  enthusiastic  attachment  resembling  that  of  a 
lover  toward  his  mistress.  I  do  not  say  that  this 
**Eros*'    ought   to   be    made   the    indispensable 


208    TEE  TEACEER'8  PRACTICAL  PEIL080PEY 

requisite  for  every  candidate  to  an  appointment  in 
our  profession ;  but  I  am  sure  that  we  should  obtain 
much  better  results  in  our  public  system  of  educa- 
tion, if  every  teacher  engaged  in  it,  had  toward  the 
work  this  attitude  as  a  matter  of  fact. 

I  now  mention  the  three  principal  ideals  of  the 
teacher,  to  each  of  which  some  special  consideration 
will  then  be  given  in  the  subsequent  lectures  of 
this  course.  They  are  (1)  The  Welfare  of  the 
Pupil;  (2)  The  Advancement  and  Dissemination  of 
Science;  (3)  The  Improvement  of  Society  and  of 
the  State.  It  is  the  more  immediate  ideal  of  edu- 
cation to  make  improved  human  beings,  better  men 
and  women,  out  of  those  who  are  under  process  of 
education— in  the  fullest  meaning  of  the  word 
** better.'*  But  the  present  and  more  remote  wel- 
fare of  those  pupils,  and  the  more  comprehensive 
and  distant  welfare  of  society  and  of  the  state,  are 
dependent  upon  the  growth  and  extension  of  knowl- 
edge; and,  therefore,  it  is  one  of  the  teacher's 
ideals  to  lend  a  hand  in  the  advancement  and  dis- 
semination of  science,  which  is  knowledge  in  its 
most  highly  developed  form.  Both  these  ideals,  as 
their  wider  and  more  distant  reaches  are  contem- 
plated, are  seen  to  culminate  in  the  strengthening, 
elevating  and  purifying  of  society,  and  in  render- 
ing the  State  stable  and  at  the  same  time  pro- 
gressive. 

During  our  hour  together  today,  let  us  attend  to 


TEE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       209 

some  considerations  which  may  help  to  define  the 
ideal  of  the  teacher  as  consisting  in  the  welfare  of 
his  pupils.  It  is,  of  course,  a  worthy  cause  of  sat- 
isfaction to  every  teacher  of  the  right  mind,  to  see 
his  pupils  ''getting  along"  or  ''doing  well,"  as  the 
popular  sayings  run.  The  motives  for  this  satis- 
faction are  various,  and  of  either  a  higher  or  a 
lower  grade,  from  the  altruistic  point  of  view. 
For  example,  it  is  gratifying  as  a  bid  for  promo- 
tion and  increase  of  salary,  or  as  a  proof  of  pro- 
fessional success,  or  as  an  object  of  professional 
pride.  But  more  honorable  than  any  of  these 
reasons  is  that  which  finds  its  motive  in  the  wish  of 
the  teacher  to  see  the  welfare  advanced  of  those 
who  have  been  made  by  his  own  choice  the  objects 
of  a  special  care.  This  motive  is  indeed  the  most 
unselfish  of  them  all. 

There  is,  however,  a  larger  and  more  benevolent 
way  to  regard  the  matter  than  any  of  those  which 
take  their  point  of  standing  with  the  teacher  him- 
self. The  welfare  of  the  pupil  realizes  the  highest 
kind  of  an  ideal  at  which  human  endeavor  can 
aim.  For  it  is  a  personal  ideal.  We  are  accus- 
tomed in  this  day  to  personify  and  idealize 
"Science;"  and  thus  attach  to  it  a  very  high 
degree  of  value,  as  we  say,  "for  its  own  sake." 
But  in  all  such  connections,  it  is  well  for  us  to 
remember  the  following  obvious,  but  too  much 
neglected  truths:  "Science"  can  not  be  personified 


210    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

and  thought  of  as  though  it  were  a  real  and  inde- 
pendent good,  quite  apart  from  all  human  interests 
or  conscious  and  sentient  life.  Science  is  only 
another  name  for  knowledge,  and  knowledge  can 
not  exist  otherwise  than  as  an  experience  of  know- 
ing minds.  Science  is  essentially  a  mental  and 
therefore  a  personal  affair.  Its  good  is  no  good-in- 
itself,  so  to  say;  it  is  the  good  possession,  or  state, 
of  conscious  human  beings  or  persons.  It  is,  then, 
the  knowing  person,  the  conscious  life  of  thought 
and  feeling,  of  power  to  interpret,  and  modify, 
and  use  nature,  which  gives  all  the  value  which  its 
devotees  sometimes  figuratively  attribute  to  so- 
called  science.  Students  and  teachers  of  science, 
therefore,  do  not  understand  the  full  meaning  and 
value  of  their  office  and  their  opportunity,  who 
regard  themselves  as  enlisted  in  the-  interests  merely 
of  an  impersonal  something  which  they  are  pleased 
to  call  by  the  name  of  SCIENCE.  Men  are  not  of 
value,  because  they  work  for  science;  but  science 
is  of  value,  because  it  works  for  the  good  of  men. 
And  now  let  us  come  back  to  the  consideration  of 
this  ideal  of  the  teacher— the  welfare  of  his  pupils. 
The  pupil  is  the  person  at  whose  good,  by  way  of 
increase  of  knowledge  and  building  of  character, 
the  teacher  is  most  directly  and  efficiently  aiming. 
His  ideal  is  to  improve  that  particular  person,  to 
make  it  more  of  a  person.  The  pupil  is,  so  to  say, 
raw  material  which  must  be  worked  up  into  a  fine 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       211 

and  serviceable  product.  From  this  point  of  stand- 
ing, when  I  hear  teachers  proclaiming  their  devo- 
tion to  the  cause  of  science,  and  openly  confessing 
or  secretly  revealing  a  lack  of  interest  in  the  per- 
sonal life,  whose  initiation  into  the  first  steps  in 
science  it  is  their  professional  duty  to  undertake,  I 
think,  not  only  how  selfish,  but  also  how  stupid,  is 
this  attitude  toward  the  teacher's  working  ideal. 
Such  a  workman  has  mistaken  the  construct  of  his 
fancy  for  the  reality  whose  nature  he  ought  to  be 
scientific  enough  truly  to  apprehend. 

In  order  to  make  clearer,  not  only  the  value  of 
this  ideal,  but  also  the  nature  and  practicability  of 
its  attainment,  I  invite  your  attention  for  a  few 
moments  to  what  is  popularly  called  the  ''metaphy- 
sics*' of  the  subject.  Perhaps  I  might  render  what 
I  have  to  expound  a  little  more  acceptable,  if  I 
spoke  of  it  as  the  psychological  doctrine  of  the  per- 
sonal life,  when  viewed  from  the  modern  point  of 
view.  This  point  of  view,  of  course,  conceives  of 
the  personal  life  of  the  individual  man,  like  every 
other  form  of  life,  as  a  development.  But  as  soon 
as  this  point  of  view  is  taken  and  consistently 
held,  from  which  to  survey  the  entire  subject, 
certain  conclusions,  which  would  otherwise  seem 
rather  startling,  appear  as  matters  of  course.  And, 
first,  there  is  an  infinite  number  of  degrees  possible 
of  the  reality  of  the  personal  life.  The  popular 
exhortation,  **Be  a  real  man/'  like  all  similar  pop- 


212    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

ular  exhortations,  is  far  better  metaphysics  than 
that  which  is  taught  by  the  professors  of  ethics 
and  philosophy  in  many  a  university.  No  one 
can  he  a  person,  without  becoming  a  person.  And 
every  one  of  us  is  to  be  ranked  as  more  or  less  of  a 
person,  according  as  we  have  in  reality  developed 
the  characteristics  of  personal  life. 

What  is  true  of  the  reality  of  personality  is  true 
of  the  unity  of  personality— of  what  we  call  ''indi- 
viduality," as  applied  to  human  beings.  I  may 
seem  to  be  using  yet  stranger  and  more  uncouth 
language,  when  I  assert  that  no  human  being  can 
be,  in  the  highest  meaning  of  the  words,  able  to 
count  as  one  distinct  and  alone  person,  without 
going  through  a  process  of  '* unifying^'  the  personal 
life.  I  once  asked  a  man  who  had  spent  his  entire 
life  in  the  most  intimate  relations  with  the  Chinese, 
if  he  could  reveal  to  me  the  characteristics  of  the 
personality  of  that  most  mysterious  race.  After 
confessing  that  they  were  still  an  unsolved  mystery 
to  him,  he  went  on  to  say  that  no  Chinese  was 
either  really  so  good,  or  really  so  bad,  as  he  seemed 
to  be.  By  this  he  meant  that  the  ''clan  conscious- 
ness'' always  colored  and  dominated  the  individual 
self -consciousness ;  that  every  Chinese  was  to  be 
considered  rather  as  a  member  of  a  peculiar  race 
than  as  an  individual  person  or  personal  unity,  so 
to  say.  And  if  we  will  reflect  upon  the  deeper 
meanings  of  such  phrases  as  **a  double-minded 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       213 

person,"  "a  person  who  does  not  know  his  own 
mind,"  "a  man  of  a  twofold  nature,"  etc.,  etc., 
we  shall  see  again  how  shrewd  is  the  instinctive 
metaphysics  of  our  popular  modes  of  speech.  But 
the  practical  efficiency  of  any  man,  as  well  as  the 
reality  and  dignity  of  his  manhood,  depends  largely 
upon  his  ability  to  escape  the  evils  of  a  divided 
personality  which  is  so  often  thwarted  and  ruined 
by  a  ceaseless  conflict  with  itself. 

Once  more;  The  development  of  the  truest 
reality  and  highest  unity  to  the  personal  life  must 
be,  in  every  case,  a  5eZ/-development ;  yet  it  is  a 
development  in  which  others  may  take  an  important 
part.  The  teacher's  function  is  to  stimulate  and 
guide  this  ''self -making"  activity  toward  its  appro- 
priate ideal.  This  ideal  is  the  development  of  the 
reality  and  the  unity  of  a  person.  As  I  have  already 
said,  there  can  be  no  higher  ideal  than  this  before 
the  teacher;  or  indeed,  before  any  one,  in  his 
relations  to  his  fellow  men.  From  this  there  fol- 
lows again  the  same  call,  already  several  times 
repeated— namely,  the  call  to  realize  in  one's  own 
person,  and  to  express  in  one's  professional  work, 
this  true  estimate  of  the  value  of  this  ideal.  We 
all  justly  honor  the  man,  who  by  study  of  its  nature, 
and  by  experimenting  with  its  culture,  develops  to 
a  higher  stage  of  perfection  some  vegetable,  or 
flower,  or  plant,  or  species  of  tree.  We  give  per- 
sonal names  to  the  strawberry,  the  apple,  the  pear. 


214    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

and  even  the  head  of  lettuce  or  cabbage,  which 
some  cultivator  has  made  to  grow  to  some  peculiar 
shape,  or  color,  or  to  some  increased  pitch  of  gus- 
tatory excellence.  But  we  ourselves  are  profes- 
sional growers  of  men  and  women ;  our  ambition  is 
to  develop  to  a  high  degree  of  excellence  the  quali- 
ties of  a  real  manhood  and  womanhood.  In  order 
to  realize  to  any  satisfactory  extent  this  ideal  of 
personal  excellence  in  his  pupils,  the  teacher  must 
show  that  he  actually  does  put  the  estimate  which 
it  deserves  upon  the  character  of  their  personal 
life;  and  he  will  show  most  effectively  this  esti- 
mate, by  evidently  striving  in  his  own  person  to 
realize  the  same  ideal. 

Besides  this  sentimental  and,  it  must  be  confessed 
somewhat  remote,  aspect  of  what  the  process  of 
education  may  hope  to  accomplish  as  a  motive  for 
interesting  the  teacher  in  the  welfare  of  his  pupils, 
there  is  this  fact  that,  of  all  the  teacher's  aims,  the 
influencing  for  their  own  good,  of  his  pupils,  is 
the  one  which  lies  nearest  at  hand,  and  the  one  in 
which  his  efforts  are  likely  to  be  most  immediately 
and  obviously  effective.  The  other  worthy  aims, 
such  as  we  are  to  consider  later,  important  and 
comprehensive  as  they  are,  must  almost  always  be 
looked  upon  in  the  light  of  a  rather  dim  perspec- 
tive ;  for  they  lie  far  above  the  present  horizon  and 
need  the  eye  of  faith,  or  they  are  far  away  in  the 
distance,  and  demand  the  historical  sense  and  the 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       215 

confidence  which  an  acquaintance  with  history 
breeds  in  the  ultimate  fulfillment  of  economic, 
sociological,  and  above  all,  ethical  principles.  The 
growth  of  science,  for  example,  is  the  care  of  many 
hundreds  or  thousands  of  observers  and  explorers; 
and  its  widest  distribution  will  be  the  product  of 
many  hundreds  of  years.  It  is  a  large,  and  far-off, 
and  therefore  rather  vague  affair.  The  same  thing 
is  true,  in  even  greater  degree,  of  the  relation  which 
the  individual  teacher,  of  average  ability  and 
opportunity,  sustains  to  the  welfare  of  society  at 
large,  and  to  the  stability  and  progress  of  the  insti- 
tutions of  the  state.  But  the  pupil  is  ever  before 
you.  His  welfare,  physical,  mental,  moral,  is  a  very 
concrete  interest,  to  which  your  attention  is 
extremely  apt  to  be  called  at  any  hour  or  minute 
of  the  school  day.  And  when  he  is  absent,  either 
on  account  of  illness  or  of  truancy,  and  when  he 
has  an  examination,  in  the  successful  passing  of 
which  your  professional  reputation  may  be  in- 
volved, you  can  not  readily  avoid  some  increase 
of  interest,  selfishly  if  not  benevolently  motived 
and  inclined.  Multiplying  this  one  individual  by 
one  or  more  tens,  you  have  a  group  of  human 
beings,  the  promotion  of  whose  welfare  by  assisting 
in  their  education,  becomes  almost  of  necessity,  a 
very  near  and  concrete  interest.  Not  infrequently, 
they  are  right  before  you— these  thirty  to  fifty,  or 
more,  living,  potential  men  and  women,  to  con- 


216    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

tribute  to  the  higher  welfare  of  whom  is  your  bus- 
iness, your  calling,  your  duty.  Thus,  the  aiming 
at  their  welfare,  however,  unconsciously  or  inter- 
mittently, becomes  like  the  aim  of  the  cook  to  make 
good  bread,  or  of  the  manufacturer  to  turn  out  a 
fair  and  marketable  product ;  or,  better  still,  of  the 
artist  who  works  in  wood,  or  clay,  or  colors,  or 
tones,  not  merely  to  do  "pot-boiling"  work,  but 
in  some  measure  to  approach  the  realization  of  his 
cherished  ideals. 

But  in  this  connection,  it  is  even  more  important 
to  insist  upon  the  truth  that  the  realization  of  the 
other  ideals,  of  a  more  strictly  scientific  or  more 
broadly  social  order,  must  be  attained  by  the 
teacher  largely,  or  even  chiefly,  through  the  work 
of  promoting  the  welfare  of  his  pupils.  At  this 
point  I  should  like  to  utter  a  strong  protest — and 
not  only  to  utter,  but  to  expound  and  defend  at 
length,  a  protest  against  the  prevalent  modern 
fallacy  of  personifying  and  deifying  Society,  and 
the  Social,  as  spelled  large  with  a  capital  ''S." 
It  is  the  Individual  who  is  the  only  reality,  and, 
in  the  long  run,  the  only  effective  way  to  get  a 
better  state  of  society  is  to  make  better— more 
intelligent,  more  moral,  more  practically  effective 
—one  hy  one,  the  individuals  who  constitute 
society.  No  matter  what  is  the  nature  of  the  gov- 
ernment, or  the  constitution  of  society,  it  always 
has  been  the  case,  and  it  always  will  be  the  cast, 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       217 

that  the  good  few  individuals  have,  by  making 
others  their  disciples  in  the  truths  of  reason  and 
in  the  practise  of  righteousness,  contributed  to  the 
welfare  of  society.  What  is  chiefly  needed  in  the 
country  at  the  present  time  is  a  small  body  of 
thoroughly  good  and  really  great  men,  who  have 
the  courage,  the  intelligence,  the  endurance  and 
the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  necessary  to  lead  the 
multitude  in  the  political,  moral  and  social  reforms, 
which  alone  can  save  the  nation  from  finally  meet- 
ing the  fate  to  which  other  nations  have  succumbed 
in  the  past.  Any  system  of  education  which  dis- 
courages or  weakens  the  cultivation  of  a  distinct 
and  strong  personality  in  those  who  have  the  inher- 
ited characteristics  that  may,  under  judicious  cul- 
tivation, develop  into  such  a  personality,  is  not  the 
best  fitted  to  meet  the  needs  of  our  day.  Keal 
leaders  are  needed  in  Church  and  State,  as  never 
before.  Prophetic  voices  were,  perhaps,  never  more 
muffled  or  sparsely  distributed,  in  all  our  national 
history  hitherto.  The  great  combinations,  the 
trust,  the  union,  the  party,  the  society,  is  in  danger 
of,  not  only  undermining  or  overwhelming  the  indi- 
vidual member,  but  even  of  crushing  out  all  individ- 
ual initiative  and  independent  procedure. 

This  state  of  things,  with  its  existing  and  its 
threatening  evils,  does  not  constitute  for  the 
teacher  a  cause  for  discouragement,  but  the  rather 
an  opportunity  for  improvement.  He  has  the  chance 


218    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

to  deal  with  individuals,  in  a  selective  way,  and  at 
the  age — as  has  already  been  said — when  they  are 
most  susceptible  to  rescue  from  the  dominance  of 
class  and  social  influences.  The  teacher  of  the 
smallest  district  school  in  the  country,  or  of  the 
most  despised  ward  school  in  the  city — it  is  pos- 
sible— may  be  the  chief  molding  influence  of  some 
one  boy  or  girl  who  will  in  the  future  be  a  power 
for  good  or  evil  to  thousands  of  others. 

The  ideal  of  the  teacher  v/hich  has  regard  to  the 
welfare  of  the  individual  pupil  is  not  only  the  most 
immediate,  but  it  is  also  the  most  practicable,  or 
likely  of  realization,  of  all  his  aims.  Really  to  do 
much  for  the  extension  of  science,  or  to  exert  any 
perceptible  influence  over  society  or  the  state,  in 
the  large,  may  seem  impossible  for  the  average 
teacher.  Even  for  scholars  of  the  front  ranks, 
there  come,  not  infrequently,  almost  tragic  dis- 
appointments of  long-cherished  hopes  of  this  sort; 
as,  for  example,  in  the  case  of  the  astronomer,  who 
spent  his  entire  life  in  making  a  map  of  the  heav- 
ens, and  finished  his  work  just  as  modern  photog- 
raphy became  able  to  accomplish  the  same  thing 
much  better  in  far  less  time ;  or  that  other  scholar, 
who  worked  for  years  on  a  commentary  on  one  of 
the  books  of  the  Bible,  but  just  before  his  work 
was  completed,  received  a  book  from  Germany 
which  had  gone  over  the  same  ground  with  equal 
thoroness   and   greater   speed.     But   our   aim  to 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       219 

help  our  pupils  to  at  least  a  somewhat  better  and 
richer  life,  can  scarcely  be  rendered  impracticable 
in  the  same  utterly  uncontrollable  ways.  There 
are,  indeed,  many  strong  counteracting  influences, 
which  restrict,  or  even  seem  to  defeat  for  the  time 
being,  this  aim  of  ours;  but  it  still  remains  prac- 
ticable, and  promising  of  some  measure  of  final 
success. 

This  encouraging  conviction  is  certainly  well 
founded  for  the  body  of  pupils  who  come  under 
the  teacher's  care.  The  average  of  interest,  of 
promise,  and  of  distinguishable  results,  may  be, 
and  probably  is,  rather  low,  perhaps  discouragingly 
low;  some  of  the  pupils,  perhaps  a  considerable 
number,  seem  well-nigh  hopeless  subjects  of  solic- 
itude and  care.  But  after  all,  the  average  man 
is  the  element  in  the  social  whole,  by  improvement 
and  education  of  which  social  progress  is  well  and 
solidly  made.  Rightly  regarded,  he  is  almost 
always  a  hopeful  subject  of  instruction  and  disci- 
pline. Nothing  very  great,  or  ideally  good,  can 
probably  be  made  of  him;  but  his  education,  if 
ethically  effective  in  any  measure,  and  if  it  attains 
the  supreme  end  of  education  in  the  forming  of 
character,  can  not  fail  to  improve  him  somewhat. 
On  the  other  hand,  they  are  few,  if  there  be  any 
such,  who  are  altogether  and  permanently  hopeless 
subjects  of  the  educative  process. 

The  teacher's  greater  reward  comes,  however,  in 


220    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  progress  and  future  influence  for  good  of  the 
select  few  among  his  pupils.  There  are  presumably 
some  among  them — perhaps,  two  or  three — who  will 
perpetuate  his  own  best  influence  and  go,  it  may 
be,  far  beyond  him  in  the  realization  of  all  the 
ideals  which  it  is  the  aim  of  the  educative  process 
to  secure.  "Whether  this  rarely  good  fortune  hap- 
pens with  any  one  of  us,  or  not,  is  likely  to  depend 
much  upon  whether  we  are  constantly  on  the  look- 
out for  it,  always  in  a  state  of  eager  expectancy  to 
secure  so  fine  and  rewarding  a  result. 

There  is  one  caution  which  I  wish  to  make  and 
emphasize,  before  we  part  with  the  theme  of  this 
lecture.  What  has  been  said  already  will,  per- 
haps, have  made  the  impression  that  I  regard  it  as 
the  privilege  and  the  duty  of  the  teacher  to  make 
himself  the  efficient  and  faithful  servant  of  those 
who  are  given  him  to  teach.  Properly  understood, 
the  impression  is  true.  But  this  attitude  of  interest 
in  the  welfare  of  the  pupil  and  of  desire  to  serve 
in  the  promotion  of  this  ideal,  must  never  be  so 
assumed  as  to  compromise  the  teacher's  dignity. 
The  teacher  must  never  become  the  tool,  either  of 
the  power  that  employs  him,  or  of  any  other  educa- 
tional agency;  or  in  the  pupil's  estimate.  There 
are  many  and  strong  influences  at  work  in  this 
country  at  the  present  time,  which  tend  to  degrade 
the  professional  teacher  to  the  position  of  some- 
body's "tool."    Too  much  of  the  idea  of  the  Board 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       221 

of  Trustees  as  dispensers  of  coveted  positions,  of 
The  President  as  a  sort  of  "boss,''  of  the  teachers 
as  hirelings,  and  of  the  institution  as  something  to 
be  run  on  the  ' '  cotton  mill  plan, ' '  has  invaded  most 
of  our  colleges  and  universities.  There  is  also,  I 
fear,  more  or  less  of  the  same  spirit  and  its  cor- 
responding practise  to  be  found  in  certain  parts 
of  our  public  school  system.  And  that  large  num- 
bers of  the  students  in  all  classes  of  educational 
institutions,  and  in  all  stages  of  the  educational 
process,  have  come  to  look  on  all  that  is  done  for 
them  with  an  attitude  almost  totally  devoid  of 
gratitude  and  of  reverence,  there  can  be  no  manner 
of  doubt.  The  average  college  man  may  seem  to 
think  that  he  is  doing  the  favor  to  both  the  insti- 
tution and  to  the  teacher,  if  he  condescends  to 
patronize  either.  Much  of  this  seeming  is  due  to 
the  conditions  which  prevail  in  the  country  at 
large;  much  is  also  due  to  certain  evils  still  exist- 
ing in  the  system  of  education  itself.  But  the 
teacher  who,  while  he  remains  eager  and  willinr^ 
to  serve,  retains  a  just  estimate  of  his  own  personal 
worth  and  of  the  dignity  of  his  profession,  will 
never  allow  himself  to  be  treated  as  the  *'tool"  of 
another.  Be  it  the  son  of  some  rich  man,  or  of 
some  member  of  the  School  Board,  or  of  the  Super- 
intendent, or  of  the  benefactor  of  the  college,  it  is 
all  the  same  with  him.  He  is  interested  in  them 
all — in  their  real  welfare.    But  he  will  be  eoura- 


222    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

geous,  and  just  and  firm ;  he  will  not  truckle  or  dis- 
semble ;  for  he  knows  that  he  can  contribute  to  the 
highest  and  lasting  welfare  of  all  concerned,  only 
by  showing  forth  those  moral  ideals  in  his  own 
character,  which  it  is  his  ideal  aim  to  promote  in  his 
pupils  as  well. 


LECTURE  XI 

THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER: 
THE   CAUSE   OF   SCIENCE 

In  these  days  an  increasing  number  of  men  have 
been  moved  by  the  fascination  of  a  certain  Idea; 
and  under  the  influence  of  this  fascination  they 
have  devoted  themselves  to  a  sort  of  passionate  and 
self-denying  service.  This  idea  is  represented  by 
the  word  ' '  Science. '  *  To  make  more  clear  what  is 
the  attitude  of  some  of  these  minds  toward  the 
object  of  their  devotion,  I  might  very  properly 
again  refer  to  the  figure  of  speech  which  Plato  used 
in  order  to  show  how,  as  he  thought,  the  philoso- 
pher should  dispose  himself  toward  so-called 
** divine  philosophy."  His  soul  should  be  aflame 
with  **  Eros  "—the  passion  of  love  as  the  lover 
feels  it  in  the  presence  of  his  mistress.  To  such 
an  one,  the  possession  of  the  loved  one  seems,  of 
all  imaginable  sources  of  happiness,  the  most  desir- 
able and  worthy  of  endeavor.  In  somewhat  the 
same  way  does  the  ''scientist,"  or  man  who  claims 
to  love  and  pursue  science  for  its  own  sake,  claim 
to  feel  toward  his  special  form  of  science.  You 
can  see,  then,  that  the  ancient  and  the  modern  ideal, 
and  the  spirit  of  the  old-time  philosopher  and  that 
of  the  new-time  scientist,  are  very  similar. 

223 


224    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Now  I  can  not  hope  to  awauen  in  all  of  you  this 
attitude  of  love  and  devotion  toward  any  particular 
form  of  human  knowledge,  or  toward  the  progress 
of  knowledge  ''for  its  own  sake/'  in  the  human 
race  in  general.  And  to  tell  the  truth,  I  do  not  by 
any  means  wholly  approve  of  this  attitude,  either  in 
itself  considered  or  in  the  practical  outcome  which 
is  its  result.  But  there  is  something  very  noble 
about  the  spirit  itself;  and  many  of  its  results  are 
most  worthy  of  our  sincerest  admiration.  So  true 
is  this,  that  I  doubt  whether  any  teacher  can  do  the 
best  kind  of  professional  work  who  does  not  have  a 
share  in  this  spirit  and  its  work.  To  advance  and 
disseminate  science  is  one  of  the  legitimate  ideals 
of  the  teacher,  no  matter  how  humble  and  obscure 
may  be  the  position  which  he  or  she  is  compelled  to 
fill.  All  this,  however,  ought  to  be  encouraged  by 
the  institutions  and  the  system  of  education  which 
employs  the  teachers,  and  recognized  and  cultiva- 
ted by  the  teachers  themselves,  in  an  intelligent  and 
reasonable  way. 

It  will,  then,  be  well  worth  our  while  to  spend 
some  time  in  defining  more  clearly  the  nature  and 
the  value  for  human  interests  of  the  form  of  knowl- 
edge which  is  called  ** science,"  in  order  that  we 
may  the  better  understand  the  relation  in  which 
its  advancement  and  dissemination  stand  to  the 
legitimate  work  of  the  professional  teacher.  In 
attempting  to  do  this  we  must  use  the  term,  and 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       225 

form  the  corresponding  conception,  m  a  broad  and 
genial  way.  The  attempt  to  give  a  sort  of  high 
and  holy,  mystical  significance  to  the  word 
*' science,''  and  then  to  usurp  its  exclusive  use  for  a 
certain  limited  circle  of  man's  cognitive  acquisi- 
tions, has  resulted  in  no  small  amount  of  mischief. 
It  has  made  a  few  men  priggish  and  knowledge- 
proud— a  condition  of  spirit  which  is  the  very 
opposite  of  the  humility  and  self-effacement  which 
characterize  the  best  examples  of  the  truly  scien- 
tific spirit.  It  has  also  operated  powerfully  to 
produce  a  lack  of  sympathy  and  cooperation 
among  the  different  branches  of  human  knowl- 
edge. I  once  knew  a  professor  of  physics  in  a 
small  college,  who  used  to  insist  that  he  was  the 
only  truly  scientific  man  in  the  entire  institution. 
But  he  was  not  himself  anything  very  great;  and 
naturally,  he  had  insuperable  difficulty  in  per- 
suading the  professors  of  chemistry,  biology,  and 
even  of  history,  and  of  languages,  that  his  claim 
was  anything  more  than  a  disagreeable  pleasantry. 
Any  group  or  series  of  experiences,  whether  with 
things  or  with  minds,  which  admits  of  accurate 
observation,  of  classification,  and  of  the  discovery 
of  any  uniform  sequences  or  connections  among  the 
experiences— its  so-called  laws— may  become  the 
subject  of  one  of  the  particular,  or  positive,  sciences, 
so-called.  The  degree  of  accuracy  of  observation 
may  vary  greatly  according  to  the  intrinsic  nature 


226    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  phenomena,  and  the  method  necessary  to  be 
employed,  or  the  stage  reached  in  the  development 
of  its  peculiar  technique.  The  principles  of  class- 
ification may  differ  widely;  and  the  body  of 
derived  laws  may  be  either,  relatively  to  some  other 
science,  very  large,  or  relatively  very  small.  And 
in  all  the  sciences,  both  principles  of  classification 
and  derived  laws  are  subject  to  almost  incessant 
change.  Otherwise,  the  particular  science  could 
not  be  a  growing  thing;  and  the  moment  any 
body  of  scientific  truth  ceases  to  change  and  to 
grow,  it  ceases  to  compete  for  attention  and  for 
devotion  from  the  minds  interested  in  the  progress 
of  truth. 

Understood  in  this  way,  the  value  of  every  science 
consists  in  the  contribution  which  it  is  able  to 
make  to  the  welfare  of  man.  I  have  already  shown 
that  to  speak  of  the  value  of  science  *'for  its  own 
sake,'*  either  involves  us  in  a  fallacy,  or  else  is  a 
convenient  but  figurative  way  of  looking  at  its 
real  good.  The  essential  nature  of  science,  which 
is  only  a  certain  way  of  knowing,  makes  it  a  mental 
good.  But  this  is  not  to  say  that  the  entire  value, 
or  even  the  chief  value  and  charm  of  science,  for 
its  devotees,  is  that  it  is  only  a  means  to  some  other 
kind  of  good.  All  human  science,  indeed,  originated 
in  the  desire  to  know— at  first,  and  chiefly — ^how  to 
behave  so  as  to  escape  the  evil  which  our  environ- 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       227 

ment  constantly  threatens,  and  to  secure  the  good 
which  it  can  bestow. 

The  modem  tendency,  in  so  far  as  it  is  due 
largely  to  a  rather  base  spirit  of  commercialism,  is 
in  the  direction  of  depreciating  all  kinds  of  knowl- 
edge that  are  not  of  the  so-called  '  ^  practical  kind. ' ' 
Science  that  builds  and  navigates  ships,  discovers 
and  reduces  ores,  or  increases  the  returns  of  agri- 
culture, improves  the  chemistry  of  iron  and  textile 
products,  investigates  and  teaches  the  causes,  the 
prevention,  and  the  cure  of  diseases,  makes  a  just  \ 
appeal  to  those  whom  such  knowledge  has  made 
wealthy  or  more  healthy,  when  presented  from  this 
practical  point  of  view.  And  I  suppose  that  it  is 
largely  as  a  protest  to  the  exclusiveness  of  this 
point  of  view,  and  from  a  sort  of  secret  feeling  that 
those  who  are  profited  in  these  ways  would  gladly 
control  and  exploit  the  scientists,  that  so  many  of 
the  latter  are  ready  to  stand  up  and  defend  the 
value  of  science  for  its  own  sake.  And  they,  too, 
have  a  certain  very  important  truth  on  their  side. 
For  science  is  a  good-in-itself  and  quite  irrespective 
of  any  use  which  may  be  made  of  it  as  a  means  to 
secure  any  other  kind  of  good.  Truth  is  reason's 
form  of  good.  The  possession  of  science,  and  the 
loving  desire  to  possess  more  of  it,  is  reason  *s  right 
and  proper  attitude  toward  external  nature  and 
toward  itself.  Seizing  upon,  and  holding  on  to, 
the  truth  is  just  what  rational  beings  ought  to  he 


228    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

engaged  in  doing.  Moreover,  it  is  a  sort  of  noble 
happiness,  however  much  of  pain  and  labor  it  may 
cost,  to  pursue  and  overtake  the  truth.  To  gain  and 
to  enjoy  the  science  is  the  mind's  good— its  stimulus 
and  its  food. 

Still  further,  the  growth  of  science  in  the  indi- 
vidual mind  and  in  the  race  is  inseparably  con- 
nected with  the  improved  character  of  the  individ- 
ual and  of  society.  It  is  true  that  one  man,  or  a 
community  of  men,  may  be  distinguished  for  a 
high  grade  of  attainments  in  science,  and  not  be 
correspondingly  advanced  in  moral,  esthetical,  and 
religious  character.  But  always  in  estimating  such 
a  condition,  we  should  keep  in  mind  the  following, 
too  much  neglected  facts,  of  great  importance  from 
the  teacher's  point  of  view. 

First:  The  pursuit  and  attainment  of  any  con- 
siderable amount  of  science  is  almost  inseparably 
connected  with  the  culture  of  some  of  the  most 
fundamental  virtues— such  are  the  virtues  of  indus- 
try, courage,  patience,  etc. ;  and  many  of  the  baser 
and  more  degrading  vices  and  indulgences  are 
scarcely  compatible  with  a  life  seriously  devoted  to 
scientific  pursuits.  But,  second,  certain  forms  of 
science  can  not  be  pursued  at  all  without  a  strong 
tendency  to  ennoble  the  character  of  the  individual 
and  of  society.  Such  are  the  sciences  that  deal 
more  directly  with  questions  of  a  psychological 
and  moral  nature;  such  also  is  philosophy,  espe- 


TEE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       229 

cially  in  its  branches  of  the  philosophy  of  conduct, 
art,  and  religion.  Those  of  the  physical  and  natural 
sciences,  which  constantly  fix  the  attention  on  the 
mysteriously  vast,  or  the  equally  mysterious  minute 
things  of  nature,  in  the  case  of  a  mind  already 
inclined  to  be  serious,  tend  to  confirm  the  inclina- 
tion and  thus  to  ennoble  the  character.  It  is  a 
somewhat  extreme,  but  after  all  significant,  way 
of  stating  this  truth,  to  declare:  **The  undevout 
astronomer  is  mad."  All  that  has  thus  far  been 
said  is  much  more  true  than  is  ordinarily  supposed, 
of  every  form  of  science,  with  regard  to  its  intrin- 
sic value  as  an  essential  factor  in  the  ideal  of  human 
welfare. 

This  general  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  aim 
which  invites  the  teacher's  enthusiastic  devotion,  as 
the  person  to  whom  the  advancement  and  the  dis- 
semination of  science  is  committed  in  a  special  way, 
may  be  still  further  enhanced  by  the  more  practi- 
cal values  of  some  of  the  particular  sciences.  These 
are  exceedingly  varied  and  extend  to  every  depart- 
ment of  human  life.  I  have,  perhaps,  already  suffi- 
ciently commended  from  this  point  of  view  those 
branches  of  physical  science  which  are  making  such 
constant  and  enormous  contributions  to  the  mate- 
rial welfare  of  mankind.  Those  researches  of  men 
learned  in  the  mysteries  of  modern  chemistry,  which 
have,  for  example,  resulted  in  the  use  of  anilin  dyes 
in  all  manner  of  textile  fabrics,  or  of  the  physicists 


230    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

who  have  applied  the  energy  of  steam  or  electricity 
to  the  development  of  transportation  facilities,  or  of 
the  biologists  and  botanists  who  have  discovered  or 
improved  now  species  of  grains  and  fruits,  have 
contributed  beyond  all  calculation  to  the  increase 
of  human  welfare.  In  general,  these  men  have 
reaped  very  little  material  benefit  from  the  contri- 
butions they  have  made.  Some  of  them  have  toiled 
on  and  died  in  poverty  and  obscurity,  obliged  to 
the  last  to  be  satisfied  with  the  rewards  of  the 
pursuit  of  science  ' '  for  its  own  sake. '  *  It  has  been, 
and  still  is,  chiefly  by  their  initiative  and  self- 
denying  efforts  that  ships  sail  speedily  and  safely 
over  all  seas,  that  steam  cars  cross  the  continent 
and  electric  trams  connect  the  villages  and  towns, 
that  great  manufacturing  and  mining  operations 
are  made  possible  and  profitable,  and  that  better 
housing  and  food  are  available,  where  inordinate 
greed  does  not  interfere,  for  the  multitudes  of  the 
common  people.  But  so  twisted  has  our  eye-sight 
become,  and  so  blinded  our  judgment,  that  we  can 
see  and  admire  only  the  great  capitalist,  or  finan- 
cier so-called,  whose  office  too  often  is,  to  capture 
and  appropriate  to  himself  far  the  greater  share 
of  the  material  benefits  of  the  extension  of  this  class 
of  the  particular  sciences.  In  my  opinion,  there  is 
nothing  meaner  than  the  attitude  of  a  considerable 
proportion  of  such  commercial  classes  toward  the 
discoverers  and  disseminators  of  science. 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       231 

But  the  evil  tendencies  and  results  of  the  more 
sordid  way  of  looking  upon  the  particular  sciences, 
and  upon  the  men  who  are  devoting  their  lives  to 
their  pursuit,  are  not  confined  to  the  commercial 
classes.  And,  indeed,  to  some  of  these  classes  the 
cause  of  science  owes  an  inestimable  debt.  It  is 
when  this  spirit  invades  the  men  of  science  them- 
selves, and  they  come  to  regard  their  work  in  science 
as  chiefly  valuable  for  what  of  material  profit  it 
will  yield  to  themselves,  when  the  scholars  and  edu- 
cationalists come  to  be  **on  the  make,"  rather  than 
unselfishly  devoted  to  their  own  ideals,  that  the 
country  has  most  to  fear  from  the  spread  of  the 
spirit  of  commercialism  over  the  educational  system 
of  the  country.  To  avoid  this  calamity,  it  would 
be  better  to  go  a  long  way  backward  toward  the 
ancient  Chinese  system— theoretical  Confucianism, 
at  least— of  arranging  the  social  classes.  This,  you 
will  doubtless  remember,  placed  the  scholar  at  the 
head,  and  the  money-getter  at  the  foot,  of  the 
social  classes. 

Without  further  apology  for  this  lengthy  excur- 
sus into  somewhat  debatable  regions  of  a  disagree- 
ably critical  sort,  because  of  the  sore  need  of  such 
criticism,  let  us  now  return  to  the  consideration  of 
the  value  of  other  particular  sciences,  as  constitu- 
ting worthy  ideals  for  the  professional  teacher. 
Among  them  stand  those  sciences  which  contribute 
to  the  improved  health  of  mankind,  because  they  are 


232    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

occupied  with  the  diagnosis  of  disease,  with  the 
discovery  of  the  causes  and  cure  of  disease,  and 
with  the  prevention  of  disease  by  the  improvement 
of  all  sorts  of  sanitation.  In  this  kind  of  promotion 
of  the  public  welfare,  thousands  of  devoted  men  and 
women  are  risking  and  sacrificing  their  health  and 
their  lives.  It  is  the  duty  and  the  privilege  of  all 
of  us  who  belong  to  the  teaching  profession,  to 
encourage  and  to  bear  our  full  share  of  the  burden 
of  this  noble  work.  In  order  to  do  this,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  become  professors  in  a  medical  school, 
or  even  teachers  of  physiology  and  hygiene  in  some 
grade  of  the  public  schools.  We  can  all  take  an 
interest  in  the  physical  welfare  of  our  pupils.  We 
can  be  examples  of  cleanly  and  sanitary  ways  of 
living.  We  can  use  our  political  and  social  influ- 
ence to  expose  and  to  suppress  the  many  ways  in 
which  the  greed  of  corporations  and  of  individuals 
is  weakening  and  depressing  and  destroying  the 
physical  and  mental  sanity  of  countless  thousands 
of  the  people.  But  above  all,  and  whatever  may  be 
our  theological  and  philosophical  views  as  to  the 
origin  of  evil,  and  whether  we  have  any  views  at 
all,  or  not,  on  that  dark,  mysterious  subject,  we 
can  recognize  for  ourselves,  and  in  many  appropri- 
ate ways  point  out  to  others,  what  a  vast  proportion 
of  these  physical  evils  is  the  result  of  ignorance 
and  moral  obliquity.  You  know  better  than  I  can 
tell  you,  how  much  of  open  or  concealed  immorality 


TEE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       233 

prevails  among  the  children  and  youth  under  your 
care.  And  I  call  your  attention  to  the  underlying 
truth  which  is  assumed  in  every  thing  I  have  to 
say:  Teaching  is  a  species  of  conduct,  involving 
peculiarly  close  relations  'between  two  classes  of 
persons;  and  all  conduct  is  of  necessity  a  moral 
affair. 

Once  more  I  refer  to  those  of  the  particular 
sciences  which  most  obviously,  and  sometimes  most 
boastfully,  aim  at  making  large  contributions  to 
the  increased  happiness  and  improved  moral  con- 
dition of  mankind.  This  is  especially  true  of  the 
sciences  of  psychology  and  ethics,  with  their  appli- 
cation to  education,  of  economics  and  sociology,  of 
ethnology  and  history.  It  is  neither  logical  nor 
easy  to  teach  these  sciences,  or  to  make  anything 
more  than  the  most  superficial  study  of  them, 
without  having  pointed  out  some  of  the  important 
moral  lessons  which  they  seem  to  inculcate.  For 
they  all  pass  in  review  the  conduct  of  human  beings, 
and  this  is  the  very  true  sphere  of  moral  princi- 
ples and  of  their  reasonable  and  effectual  appli- 
cation. With  the  grander  outlook  on  the  history 
of  the  race,  and  with  the  increased  knowledge  of 
all  those  aspects  of  its  history  which  it  is  the  bus- 
iness of  these  sciences  to  explore  in  detail,  that 
have  resulted  from  the  modem  theory  of  evolution, 
their  lessons  regarding  right  ways  of  human  con- 


234    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

duct   have   become   more   trustworthy   and   more 
profound. 

All  the  worthiest  characteristics  of  the  particu- 
lar sciences  as  looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  teacher  who  is  an  enthusiastic  idealist,  culmi- 
nate in  those  scientific  pursuits  which  especially 
encourage  and  cultivate  the  spirit  of  sobriety, 
reverence,  and  devotion  toward  mankind  and 
toward  God.  The  greater  men  in  all  the  particular 
sciences  have,  as  a  rule,  possessed  and  duly  exhibi- 
ted this  spirit  in  their  work.  They  have  regarded 
themselves  as  obligated  to  the  service  of  mankind. 
They  have  had  something  of  those  convictions  which 
led  Plato  to  form  the  conception  of  God  as  **the 
great  geometer."  They  have  felt  over  their  most 
notable  discoveries  somewhat  as  Kepler  is  reputed 
to  have  felt  when,  on  his  discovery  of  the  laws  of 
planetary  motion,  he  affirmed:  *'I  read  thy 
thoughts  after  thee,  0  God!"  And  as  those  of  you 
know  who  happen  to  have  looked  over  the  latter 
part  of  the  great  work  of  one  of  the  most  notable 
of  the  world's  men  of  science  in  all  time— I  refer 
to  the  Principia  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton— he  closes 
with  words  that  are  a  veritable  sermon  on  the  rea- 
sons that  lie  in  nature  for  the  adoration  and  worship 
of  the  Supreme  Kuler  of  nature.  Thus  the  man  of 
science  passes  beyond  the  more  legitimate  bounda- 
ries of  his  own  particular  science,  in  order  to  get 
some  of  the  benefits  which  are  especially  allotted  to 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       235 

the  study  of  ethics,  of  esthetics,  and  of  religion. 

On  the  supposition  that  we  are  all  more  than 
sufficiently  convinced  of  the  value  to  the  individual 
and  to  society  of  scientific  culture  and  attainments, 
at  any  rate  so  far  as  our  own  pet  science  is  con- 
cerned, let  us  now  consider  some  of  the  practical 
ways  in  which  the  professional  teacher  may  hope 
to  realize  his  ideal  as  a  promoter  and  disseminator 
of  scientific  interests.  For  I  can  readily  appre- 
ciate the  feeling  which  I  am  sure  all  of  you  have 
had  in  some  degree,  and  some  of  you  in  a  high 
degree— namely,  that  what  has  thus  far  been  said  in 
praise  of  science  is  somewhat  above  the  level,  or 
beyond  the  range,  of  the  average,  over-burdened 
and  not  very  enthusiastic,  teacher. 

We  may  make  a  good  beginning,  however,  in  the 
effort  to  lift  up  our  courage  by  remembering  that 
there  is  an  indisputable  encouraging  fact  connected 
with  the  history  of  the  progress  of  modern  science. 
The  fact  is  this:  Science  owes  its  advances  chiefly 
to  teachers  as  a  class.  We  may  have  little  or  no 
reason  for  pride  on  account  of  any  notable  contri- 
butions to  growth  of  knowledge,  which  we  may 
ourselves  have  made ;  although,  if  we  have  been  at 
all  faithful  teachers,  we  can  scarcely  have  failed 
to  have  contributed  something  to  the  increased  dis- 
semination of  science.  But  we  may  cherish  a  rea- 
sonable amount  of  pride  at  belonging  to  a  profession 
which  has  been  the  chief  among  all  professions  in 


236    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

increasing  this  kind  of  valuable  assets  for  the 
benefit  of  the  race.  With  comparatively  few  excep- 
tions, the  forward  steps  in  every  form  of  human 
knowledge  have  been  taken  by  men  who  were 
teachers.  And  the  dissemination  of  science  is 
teaching ;  and  so  this  side  of  the  ideal  of  education 
is  the  teacher's  peculiar  function. 

It  is  not  uncommon  nowadays,  to  think  that  his 
teaching  is  prejudicial  to  the  work  of  the  discoverer 
of  scientific  truth.  Undoubtedly,  the  excessive 
burden  of  what  is  called  drudgery  that  is  laid 
upon  the  greater  number  of  the  teachers  of  the 
land,  prevents  their  doing  much  so-called  **  origi- 
nal" work.  And  in  consequence,  there  has  arisen 
a  more  or  less  determined  call  to  have  this  burden 
diminished.  Some  theorists  in  matters  of  educa- 
tion are  advocating  that  it  should  be  wholly  re- 
moved from  those  members  of  the  teaching  force,  in 
our  higher  institutions  of  learning,  who  succeed  in 
commending  themselves  to  the  appointing  power, 
or  to  the  chief  executive  officer,  as  capable  of  doing 
original  work.  Yet  the  fact  remains — account  for 
it  as  we  may — that  the  two  desirable  things,  the 
work  of  teaching  and  the  work  of  advancing  science, 
are  in  general  most  indebted  to  the  same  persons. 
It  is,  not  only  in  itself,  an  interesting  problem,  but 
it  may  throw  some  additional  light  on  the  func- 
tions, equipment,  and  ideals  of  the  professional 
teacher,  if  we  consider  the  possible  reasons  for  this 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       237 

undoubted  historical  fact.  Of  these  reasons,  prob- 
ably the  most  obvious  is  this :  The  teacher 's  life  is 
usually  spent  in  the  daily  work  of  learning  and  of 
clarifying  knowledge  by  trying  to  tell  what  is 
already  known.  There  are  many  men  engaged  in 
business,  or  in  the  learned  professions,  who  are 
not  by  profession  teachers,  but  who  have  a  sincere 
interest  in  some  form  of  science— either  that  most 
closely  allied  with  their  own  business  and  profes- 
sional interests,  or  that  for  which  their  natural 
tastes  and  early  training  has  best  fitted  them.  And 
from  time  to  time  such  men  are  making  more  or 
less  important  contributions  to  literature  or  to 
some  one  of  the  particular  sciences.  But  the  dif- 
ficulties which  this  class  of  the  promoters  of  human 
knowledge  meet  are  very  great;  indeed  they  are 
customarily  deterrent  from  even  making  the 
attempt  at  any  work  of  special  study  and  writing. 
On  the  contrary,  the  very  pursuit  of  the  practising 
teacher,  more  than  that  of  the  practising  lawyer, 
or  the  practising  physician,  and  much  more  than 
that  of  the  man  engaged  in  business,  pledges  and 
compels  him  to  incessant  study  after  the  new  things 
of  science,  and  after  the  better  ways  of  imparting 
the  knowledge  of  these  new  things  to  other  persons. 
Besides  this,  the  teacher,  unless  he  is  situated  in  a 
very  lonely  and  isolated  position,  dwells  in  an 
atmosphere  where  all  who  breathe  it  have  some- 


238    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PBIL080PHT 

thing  of  the  work  of  promoting  and  disseminating 
knowledge  set  before  them  as  a  daily  task. 

And  now  I  am  going  to  mention  another  form 
of  stimulus  which  is  pretty  freely  administered  to 
lis  who  have  chosen  the  life-work  of  teaching,  but 
which  is  customarily  supposed  to  act  as  a  depres- 
sant rather  than  as  a  stimulant.  I  refer  to  the 
enforced  life  of  poverty  which  belongs  to  the 
teachers  as  a  class.  On  the  whole,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  we  are  kept  just  about  poor  enough  to  favor 
our  doing  the  best  work  in  behalf  of  the  promotion 
and  dissemination  of  science,  as  a  professional 
ideal.  Please  notice,  I  have  placed  some  emphasis 
on  the  qualification,  ''as  a  professional  ideal."  I 
am  not  opposed  to  an  urgent  request,  and  even  a 
persistent  demand,  on  the  part  of  the  teachers  in 
the  public  schools  and  in  the  colleges  and  univer- 
sities of  the  country,  for  an  increase  in  their  sal- 
aries. Having  spent  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century  in  the  service  of  a  wealthy  institution, 
during  which  my  expenses  doubled,  while  my  sal- 
ary was  increased  by  the  munificent  sum  of  two- 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  I  know  of  my  own  expe- 
rience how  the  case  stands  with  the  underpaid  class 
to  whom  the  country  has  committed  the  most 
important  of  its  economic,  political,  and  social 
interests.  But  on  the  other  hand,  I  think  I  have 
noticed  that  the  younger  race  of  teachers,  men  and 
women,  everywhere  and  in  institutions  high  and 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       230 

low  in  their  educational  grade,  are  much  more  "on 
the  make"  than  were  their  forebears  of  a  generation 
or  two  ago;  but  I  have  not  noticed  that  they  are 
accomplishing  any  more  for  the  thorough  educa- 
tion of  their  pupils  or  for  the  advancement  of 
scientific  ideals  or  scientific  discoveries.  And  it 
is  common  enough  talk  that  for  one  of  them  to 
have  the  good  luck  to  marry  a  rich  wife  is  ex- 
tremely likely  to  hinder  or  to  spoil  his  career  as  a 
teacher  and  a  man  of  science.  Why  not  admit, 
then,  that  the  moderate  compensation  which 
effectually  removes  the  seductions  of  wealth  and 
the  increased  burden  of  social  and  profitless  out- 
side engagements,  if,  with  good  sense  and  strict 
economy  in  its  disposal,  it  also  removes  the  anx- 
ieties of  excessive  poverty,  is  on  the  whole  the  most 
favorable  condition  for  the  profession  of  the 
teacher  ? 

For  the  reason  of  its  relatively  poor  financial 
reward,  as  well  as  for  other  reasons,  on  which  I 
need  not  stop  to  dwell,  many  of  our  teachers  of  the 
higher  grade  would  not  be  teachers  at  all,  were  it 
not  for  the  fact  that  their  interest  has  become 
strongly  enlisted  in  the  cause  of  learning  and 
science— in  a  word,  in  the  cause  of  education  for 
themselves  and  for  others.  And  where  this  interest 
becomes  a  sort  of  fascination,  as  not  infrequently 
happens,  we  have  the  conditions  fulfilled  for  the 
most  successful  professional  work.    For  this  is  a 


240    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

kind  of  interest  which  is  apt  to  grow  by  feeding 
on  itself;  and  the  person  who  once  firmly  fixes 
before  his  mind  the  acquiring,  advancing,  and  dis- 
tribution, of  the  benefits  of  knowledge,  is  not  likely 
ever  again  to  let  this  ideal  fade  wholly  out  of  his 
sight. 

To  a  certain  amount  of  native  ambition  and  at 
least  a  small  measure  of  original  fitness,  we  must 
assume  that  the  preparation  of  the  teacher  for  his 
work  of  teaching  keeps  him  for  a  considerable 
period  of  years  in  the  acquisitive  and  inquiring 
state  of  mind.  This  is  certainly  coming  to  be  more 
and  more  the  case,  with  the  elaboration  of  our 
system  of  education,  in  this  country  and  at  the 
present  time.  Thus  do  all  the  influences  in  the 
history  and  the  environment  of  even  the  teacher  of 
average  attainments  contribute  to  the  opportunity 
— and,  indeed,  almost  enforce  the  necessity— for 
estimating  highly  the  value  of  science  and  for 
reflecting  upon  and  serving  in  practical  ways,  its 
many-sided  interests.  At  any  rate,  from  the  days 
when  Plato  and  Aristotle  taught  their  pupils  under 
the  groves  and  in  the  halls  of  ancient  Athens,  to 
the  days  when  Lord  Kelvin  and  Hemholtz  lec- 
tured and  demonstrated  in  the  lecture-rooms  of 
Great  Britain  and  Germany,  the  teachers  of  the 
world  have  been  the  chief  promoters  of  its  science. 
And  this  statement  is  justified  by  thousands  of 
much  obscurer  names  than  theirs. 


4  TEB  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       241 

As  to  so-called  original  research,  or  the  discovery 
of  altogether  new  facts  and  principles  of  science,  it 
is,  of  course,  quite  beyond  the  power  or  the  prov- 
ince of  most  teachers  to  attempt  anything  consider- 
able of  this  sort.  To  make  the  claim,  or  even  the 
attempt,  would  for  most  of  us  result  in  either 
self-deception  or  failure.  But  I  assure  you,  there  is 
more  shamming  and  pretense  about  this  matter  of 
''original  research"  than  about  almost  any  of  the 
other  phrases  so  glibly  and  so  unintelligently  used 
by  many  advocates  of  the  wholly  new  in  our  sys- 
tem of  education.  The  eagerness  to  publish  new 
discoveries  and  have  them  attached  to  one's  name 
has  greatly  outstripped  the  ability  to  have  any- 
thing, new  or  old,  at  all  worth  the  publishing. 
And  the  multiplying  of  trashy  magazine  articles 
and  doctor's  theses,  which  appear  under  the  spe- 
cious claim  to  contain  something  both  original  and 
important,  is  appalling. 

And  yet  it  can  not  be  said  that  it  is  beyond  the 
pale  of  possibility  for  any  teacher,  however,  hum- 
ble, to  contribute  something  valuable  and  new  to 
the  world's  stock  of  knowledge.  My  advice  to  any 
one  properly  ambitious  in  this  direction  is:  '*Do 
not  look  too  far  away;  what  you  are  seeking  is 
perhaps  near  at  hand,  in  your  very  neighborhood, 
or  at  least  not  far  away.*"  There  may  be  some  new 
species  of  flower  in  the  woods  or  fields  where  you 
can  take  your  daily  or  weekly  walk.    Some  one  of 


242    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  million  or  more  of  the,  as  yet,  unindentified 
species  of  insects  may  be  working  in  the  ground 
or  trees  and  shrubs  of  the  same  fields  and  woods; 
and  working  either  for  or  against  the  interests  of 
man.  Or  if  such  matters  as  these  do  not  interest 
you,  remember  that  all  the  science  in  the  world 
knows  only  a  little  of  what  there  is  to  know  about 
the  habits  of  the  birds  and  the  bees,  and  all  manner 
of  living  things.  Or,  again,  to  pass  into  a  quite 
different  region,  the  town,  the  village,  the  more 
sparsely  settled  community  where  you  are  living, 
has  a  history  that  is  an  integral  part,  and  may 
easily  become  a  very  important  part,  of  a  much 
wider  historical  interest.  Learn  something  about 
it;  and  if  your  findings  seem  worth  while,  make 
them  known  in  a  modest  and  truthful  way.  And 
occasionally,  there  will  be  a  common-school  teacher 
—although  heaven  makes  such  talents  a  rare  gift— 
who  can  tell  the  story  of  the  life  and  the  environ- 
ment of  her  pupils,  and  of  her  success  with  them, 
in  a  manner  to  command  an  enlightened  and  ten- 
der public  sympathy,  as  recently  did  one  of  the 
teachers,  now,  alas,  no  longer  living,  in  a  public 
school  in  lower  East  Side,  New  York  City. 

It  is  as  increasing  the  possibility  of  doing  some- 
thing of  this  sort  that  I  urge  again  upon  every 
teacher  the  benefit  of  having  some  special  interest 
—or,  if  you  please,  **fad'* — in  some  line  of  science. 

But  even  if  no  opportunity  seems  at  any  time 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       243 

possible,  for  doing  anything  to  contribute  to  the 
world's  stock  of  useful  knowledge,  there  is  for 
every  one  of  us  a  very  good  likelihood  that  some 
of  our  pupils  will  be  stimulated  by  us,  who  will  be 
far  more  than  we  can  ever  hope  to  be,  really  effec- 
tive promoters  of  the  ideal  of  science.  And,  on 
the  other  hand,  who  teaches  anything  at  all,  is  sure 
to  be,  day  by  day,  and  hour  by  hour,  a  disseminator 
of  science.  The  teachers  of  a  nation  are  the  dis- 
tributors of  the  world 's  knowledge  broadcast.  This 
is  a  kind  of  seed,  some  of  which  can  not  fail  to 
grow.  A  full  century  of  the  race's  experience  of 
toil  and  bloodshed  may  be  disseminated  in  the  les- 
son of  a  single  hour. 


LECTURE  XII 

THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER: 
THE  PUBLIC  WELFARE 

I  have  already  indicated  many  ways  in  which 
the  work  of  the  teacher  is  related  to  the  public 
welfare;  and  I  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  more 
in  detail  on  this  subject  in  subsequent  lectures. 
But  I  wish  at  the  present  time  to  say  a  few  words 
regarding  the  obligation  and  the  opportunity  of  all 
who  are  engaged  in  the  profession  of  teaching  to 
accept,  and  consciously  hold  before  their  minds,  the 
general  good  as  one  of  their  cherished  ideals.  For 
the  intelligent  and  aspiring  teacher,  although  his 
most  intimate  daily  task  and  aim  are  directed  to- 
ward the  welfare  of  some  particular  school,  is  en- 
titled to  expand  the  conception  of  the  relations 
which  his  work,  and  that  of  his  colleagues,  sustains 
to  the  community  at  large.  Indeed,  something  of 
this  sort  is  necessary  with  every  one  of  us,  if  we 
are  to  view  our  influence  in  that  large-minded  and 
contented  way,  which  makes  the  life  of  the  hum- 
blest workman  a  happier  and  a  nobler  affair. 

I  invite  you,  then,  first  of  all,  to  try  to  estimate 
in  an  adequate  manner  the  obligation  of  this  form 
of  the  teacher's  professional  ideals.    The  grounds 

244 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       245 

of  such  an  obligation  belong  to  the  very  nature  of 
man  as  existing  in  society.  Speaking  broadly  we 
may  say  that  every  human  being,  by  virtue  of  his 
being  human  at  all,  becomes  a  member  of  the  social 
whole.  Indeed,  it  is  now  an  accepted  psychological 
truth  that  the  most  important  characteristics  of 
humanity  can  develop  only  in  society.  Alone,  the 
human  animal  can  not  grow  into  the  mental  and 
moral  stature  of  a  truly  human  being,  a  man,  in 
the  fullest  meaning  of  the  word.  This  general 
truth  might  be  illustrated  in  great  detail  by  show- 
ing how  it  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  the  indi- 
vidual comes  into  the  possession  of  speech,  of  a 
knowledge  of  nature  as  man  knows  it,  and  of  moral 
ideas  and  the  semblance,  at  least,  of  a  regard  for 
moral  considerations  in  his  intercourse  with  his 
fellows  of  the  same  species.  It  is  true  that  we  must 
look  to  the  development  of  human  reason  as  the 
source  of  the  allied  development  of  human  lan- 
guage. And  given  a  group  of  human  beings,  who 
were  so  situated  as  to  be  from  the  first  deprived 
of  any  ancestral  inheritance  in  the  way  of  a  trans- 
mitted language,  they  would  proceed  to  develop 
one  adapted  to  the  uses  of  the  simpler  forms  of 
communication  of  their  wants  and  of  social  inter- 
course. But  it  is  also  true  that  any  considerable 
development  of  the  individual  is  dependent  on  his 
being  early  put  into  the  possession  of  an  ancestral 
inheritance  of  a  language  already  developed;  and 


246    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

on  his  being  compelled  to  make  use  of  this  means 
prepared  for  him,  in  order  to  make  his  wants 
known  and  to  make  his  influence  felt.  The  indi- 
vidual left  to  himself  for  the  use  of  merely  natural 
signs  would  scarcely  manage  to  become  a  man;  a 
*'man  among  men"  he  could  not  become  at  all. 

Somewhat  the  same  things  must  be  said  about  the 
indispensable  character  of  the  knowledge  which 
every  individual  inherits  to  some  extent,  and  the 
existence  of  which  is  due  to  the  accumulated  ex- 
perience of  the  race.  We  pride  ourselves  upon  be- 
ing mentally  brighter,  or  more  intellectual,  than 
were  our  own  savage  ancestors;  or,  especially,  as 
being  much  more  highly  developed  than  are  those 
races  which  seem  to  us  to  lie  closer  to  the  so-called 
primitive  man.  But  there  is  grave  reason  to  doubt 
whether  by  far  the  greater  part  of  this  assumed  su- 
periority is  not  an  expression  of  the  simple  fact 
that  we  get  by  no  work  of  our  own  what  the  race 
before  us  has  toiled  for  centuries  to  secure.  Every 
teacher  is  telling  to  boys  and  girls  of  scanty  intel- 
lectual interest  and  low  grade  of  intellectual  at- 
tainments, scores  of  truths  about  the  nature  and 
manner  of  the  behavior  of  things  which  Aristotle 
and  Galileo,  and  even  Newton,  did  not  know. 

As  to  morality,  it  is  so  essentially  a  social  af- 
fair that  we  can  not  apply  any  of  its  terms  to  hu- 
man beings  conceived  of  as  existing  outside  of 
human  society.    We  can  not  speak  of  a  person  as 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER        247 

moral  or  immoral,  but  only  as  non-moral,  or  not  a 
true  person  at  all,  when  thought  of  as  an  indi- 
vidual and  not  a  member  of  some  social  whole. 

But  I  scarcely  need  to  speak  further  of  the  obli- 
gations to  society  which  rest  upon  every  individual ; 
and  I,  therefore,  pass  on  at  once  to  mention 
several  reasons  of  a  more  special  sort,  why  this 
obligation  to  regard  the  relation  of  his  work  to 
the  public  welfare  rests  upon  the  professional 
teacher.  In  the  case  of  nearly  every  teacher,  his 
very  preparation  for  the  work  of  teaching  has  en- 
gendered a  certain  peculiar  obligation  to  society. 
In  the  great  majority  of  cases,  in  the  system  preva- 
lent in  this  country  and  of  which  we  are  so  justly 
proud  for  its  "freedom,"  it  is  society  which  has 
given  this  preparation — ^^given^'  it  literally,  be- 
cause few  of  us  there  be,  indeed,  who  have  ever 
paid  for  one-half,  or  even  for  one-fourth,  of  what 
we  have  received.  Besides,  however  this  prepara- 
tion may  have  been  received,  it  raises  the  teacher 
above  the  average  ability  to  contribute  to  the  pub- 
lic welfare.  Now,  there  is  a  very  sound  judgment 
gaining  ground  that  no  individual  can  acquire 
wealth  without  being  placed  in  this  way  under  pe- 
culiar obligations  to  the  society  whose  co-operation 
and  active  assistance  have  been  essential  to  both  its 
acquisition  and  its  continued  safe  possession.  And 
I  might  add  that  this  obligation  is  made  particu- 
larly binding  by  the  present  conditions  which  have. 


248    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

in  some  respects  at  least,  favored  the  acquisition 
of  wealth  by  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many. 
These  conditions,  it  is  rightly  held,  put  additional 
obligations  on  those  classes  to  whom  society — altho 
so  often  in  ignorance  or  with  sinister  motives — ^has 
literally  given  so  much  of  the  country's  wealth  of 
natural  resources  and  legitimate  annual  income. 
But  why,  I  ask  you,  does  not  something  similar 
in  the  way  of  obligation  rest  upon  the  individual 
to  whom  society,  at  its  own  cost,  has  given  the 
riches  of  knowledge,  the  wealth  of  a  public  school, 
or  a  college,  or  a  university  education?  It  seems 
to  me  that  the  motto,  NoUesse  oblige,  applies  al- 
most equally  well  in  both  cases. 

Not  only  the  preparation,  but  also  the  position, 
of  the  teacher  imposes  a  peculiar  obligation  to  seek 
for  the  public  welfare.  The  welfare  of  every  class 
and  every  section  of  society  depends  largely — ^yes, 
chiefly,  upon  the  mental  and  moral,  as  well  as 
physical  culture  of  its  children  and  youth.  This  is 
true  of  its  present-day  welfare.  No  community 
whose  children  and  youth  are  not  well  cared  for — 
body,  mind  and  morals— can  possibly  **fare  well'* 
in  the  higher  meaning  of  this  dubious  phrase.  The 
nation  is  just  beginning  to  wake  up  to  a  realization 
of  this  truth  as  affecting  the  physical  condition  of 
her  children  and  youth.  Efforts  are  making  to  se- 
cure more  nourishing  and  better  cooked  food,  and 
cleaner  and  better  ventilated  housing  for  the  chil- 


TEE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       249 

dren  of  the  nation ;  to  secure  the  maturing  of  their 
bodies  and  of  their  minds  against  efforts  of  un- 
scrupulous greed  to  obtain  cheaper  labor,  or  higher 
rentals  on  the  tenements  in  which  so  many  of  them 
are  forced  to  live;  to  see  that  they  are  not  suffer- 
ing from  eye-strain  and  adenoids  and  from  other 
similar  evils,  and  to  mitigate  the  system  of  cram- 
ming which  is  working  so  much  evil  to  both  pupils 
and  teachers.  "We  are  even — but  all  too  cautiously 
and  dubiously — considering  whether  something  can 
not  be  done  effectually  to  warn  their  parents  and  to 
instruct  them,  with  respect  to  the  dreadful  results 
in  social  ways,  of  the  increasing  prevalence  of 
sexual  and  other  forms  of  vice  and  immorality. 
And  there  are  at  least  a  minority  of  us  who  are 
deeply  interested  in  educational  matters,  that  are 
hoping  the  day  may  come  when  explicit  and  force- 
ful ethical  instruction  and  discipline  will  fill  a  much 
larger  place  in  our  entire  educational  system  from 
the  kindergarten  to  the  university  and  professional 
school.  In  all  these,  and  in  all  other  similar  mat- 
ters of  the  public  welfare,  every  conscientious 
teacher  is  bound  to  be  especially  interested.  And 
by  his  very  employment  as  a  teacher,  every  one 
of  us  is  placed  in  a  position  to  be  especially  in- 
fluential. 

The  teacher's  relation  to  the  parents  and  guar- 
dians of  the  children  and  youth  of  the  land  still 
further  enforces  the  obligation  of  the  ideal  of  the 


250    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

public  welfare.  The  changes  which  are  so  rapidly 
going  on  in  the  domestic  and  social  conditions  of 
our  national  life  are  yearly  making  this  statement 
more  emphatically,  and  even  startlingly,  true. 
Fewer  parents  than  was  formerly  the  case  take 
any  active  part  in  the  education  of  their  children. 
Time  was,  when  most  of  us  learned  our  letters  on 
the  floor  at  home,  and  learned  to  read  at  our 
mother's  knee.  In  those  days,  in  many  families, 
all  the  early  education  was  under  supervision  at 
home,  and  much  of  what  was  learned  at  all,  in  all 
the  earlier  branches  of  learning,  was  learned  at 
home.  Or,  perhaps,  the  minister  started  the  boys 
of  the  parish  in  their  Latin.  The  professional  edu- 
cation of  the  intending  lawyer  or  doctor,  too,  was 
chiefly  gained,  not  by  attending  school,  but  by 
reading  law  or  medicine  in  the  office  of  some  prac- 
titioner. But  now  parents,  as  a  class,  have  thrown 
off  almost  all  personal  responsibility  for  the  edu- 
cation of  even  their  own  offspring.  They  have 
turned  them  over — body,  soul  and  every  otherwise 
— to  the  professional  teacher.  Even  if  they  would 
like  themselves  to  do  something  in  a  more  personal 
way  for  the  education  of  their  own  children,  they 
have  neither  the  time  nor  the  ability ;  and  the  very 
character  of  the  home-life  makes  all  effective  in- 
fluences in  this  direction  more  difficult,  if  not  quite 
impossible.  If  anything  is  to  be  added  to  what 
is  expected  of  the  Dublic  school,  in  the  way  of 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       251 

moral  and  religious  instruction  and  training,  this, 
too,  is  not  undertaken  at  home,  but  is  committed 
to  the  so-called  Sunday-school.  Here  a  consider- 
able portion  of  the  teachers  are  the  very  same  per- 
sons to  whom  the  secular  education  of  the  children 
is  entrusted.  I  confess  that  the  present  condition, 
with  all  its  tendencies,  seems  to  put  an  unjustifi- 
able amount  of  the  responsibilities  properly  belong- 
ing to  the  parents,  upon  the  teachers ;  and  to  have 
the  complementary  bad  effect  of  indulging  the 
parents  in  shirking  the  responsibilities  which  they 
have  assumed  in  becoming  parents.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  conscientious  teacher  can  not  see  the 
way  clear  to  throwing  back  any  large  measure  of 
this  imposition  upon  the  persons  to  whom  it 
properly  belongs.  What,  then,  can  he  do  but  ac- 
cept it  as  a  sort  of  sacred  trust? 

If  I  seem  to  you  to  have  exaggerated  the  obliga- 
tion of  the  average  teacher  to  consider  the  public 
welfare  as  one  of  his  more  influential  ideals,  and 
to  have  made  the  burden  of  this  obligation  as  a 
kind  of  sacred  trust  too  great  easily  to  be  borne, 
I  turn  the  more  eagerly  to  speak  of  the  practical 
nature  of  this  same  idea.  What  is  in  fact  the  op- 
portunity and  what  the  power  of  the  average 
teacher  to  realize  something  of  this  ideal  in  case 
he  feels  the  obligation  to  cherish  it  ?  How  can  the 
teacher — just  the  average  teacher,  in  the  ordinary 
community — ^manage  his  work  so  as  to  contribute 


252    TEE  TEACEER'S  PRACTICAL  PEILOSOPEY 

in  any  considerable  way  to  the  welfare  of  that 
community,  and  possibly  to  the  welfare  of  a  much 
larger  section  of  the  public  ?  Of  course,  the  answer 
at  once  springs  to  our  lips:  By  being  a  good  and 
successful  teacher  he,  of  necessity,  makes  some 
worthy  contribution  to  the  sum  of  the  general 
good.  But  the  question  I  am  now  pressing  has 
reference  to  contributions  that  are  over  and  above 
the  very  important  contribution  that  is  constantly 
being  made  in  the  work  of  teaching. 

Before  being  more  specific,  it  is  well  to  bear  in 
mind  these  two  thoughts  which  may  help  to  moder- 
ate our  expectations  and  make  them  more  reason- 
able, without  having  the  bad  effect  of  suppressing 
them,  or  turning  them  in  adverse  directions.  And, 
first,  the  improvement  of  the  physical,  mental  and 
moral  condition  of  any  larger  number  of  persons, 
collected  into  a  so-called  community,  is  apt  to  be, 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  a  slow  and  irregular 
growth.  A  sound  and  serviceable  man  or  woman — 
just  one  single  human  individual  of  which  Provi- 
dence might  be  proud — can  not  be  produced  in  a 
single  day.  No  other  animal  costs  so  much  to  bring 
to  maturity  as  the  human  animal.  And  under  the 
most  favorable  conditions  the  development  of  any 
one  boy  or  girl  to  ripe  manhood  or  womanhood  is 
one  of  the  most  notable  of  nature's  achievements, 
even  when  nature  is  helped  out  by  an  environment 
which  has  cost  thousands  of  years  of  the  civilizing 


THE  CHIEF  IDEAL 8  OF  THE  TEACHER       253 

process.  The  average  human  being,  as  judged  by 
his  own  ideal  standards  and  those  not  the  highest 
type  of  ideals,  is  still  a  pretty  poor  sort  of  a  crea- 
ture. We  as  a  nation,  in  this  twentieth  century 
of  the  so-called  Christian  era,  are  not  more  than 
an  eighth  part  civilized.  And  the  best  attempts  to 
get  either  the  individual  child,  or  the  whole  com- 
munity of  grown  men  and  women,  just  a  little  fur- 
ther toward  this  ideal  of  human  perfection,  indi- 
vidual and  social,  generally  have  only  partial  and 
fitfully  good  results.  All  this  is  not  said,  and  is 
not  to  be  remembered  by  us  teachers,  by  way  of 
discouragement,  but  the  rather,  to  guard  us  against 
premature  and  unwarrantable  discouragement.  It 
is  the  steady  pull  and  the  long  pull,  and  the  pull 
altogether  which  is  going  to  lift  the  public  higher 
toward  its  own  ideal  of  an  improved  social  welfare. 
And,  in  the  second  place,  many,  perhaps  most, 
of  the  most  successful  of  the  teacher's  attempts  to 
contribute  to  the  welfare  of  society  in  some  large 
way  are  sure  to  be  hidden  from  his  knowledge. 
The  bread  which  we  cast  upon  the  waters  of  a 
single  human  soul  whose  improvement  is  com- 
mitted to  our  care  is  very  apt  speedily  to  disappear 
beneath  those  waters  and  never  to  return  to  our 
sight.  But  if  it  floats  down  the  stream  and  over- 
flows the  wider  fields  lying  far  below,  the  chances 
are  against  our  having  it  returned  to  us,  even  after 
many  days. 


254    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

There  are,  however,  certain  considerations  which 
may  properly  contribute  to  the  encouragement  and 
hopefulness  of  every  teacher,  with  respect  to  the 
feasible  character  of  this  ideal — to  be  realized, 
indeed,  but  only  very  partially  and  in  time. 

The  teachers  of  any  community  are,  as  a  rule, 
better  informed  than  the  average  of  the  community 
as  to  what  measures  are  really  suited  to  favor  an 
increase  of  the  public  welfare.  In  making  this  re- 
mark, I  include  all  kinds  and  grades  of  teachers, 
in  all  kinds  of  communities.  Obviously,  the 
teachers  of  engineering,  physics,  chemistry,  biology, 
botany,  bacteriology,  surgery  and  medicine  are,  on 
the  whole,  the  best  fitted  members  of  society  to 
secure  its  sanitary  and  physical  welfare.  If  all 
public  enterprises,  bearing  on  the  public  improve- 
ments of  this  sort — the  laws  enacted  and  enforced, 
the  measures  devised  and  executed,  and  the  works 
planned  and  constructed — could  be  taken  entirely 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  politicians  and  committed 
to  the  hands  of  the  teachers — taxation  and  the  rais- 
ing of  revenue,  for  these  purposes  alone  being 
excepted — who  can  doubt  that  the  physical  and 
sanitary  welfare  of  the  public  would  be  much  bet- 
ter protected  than  it  is  at  the  present  time  ?  They 
are  the  men  who  know,  and  the  politicians  are,  for 
the  greater  part,  the  men  who  do  not  know. 
Doubtless  there  would  be  disagreement  among  these 
classes  of  professional  men,  as  to  laws,  measures, 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       255 

plans,  and  even  as  to  facts.  But,  not  so  much  dis- 
agreement as  is  encountered  among  the  politicians 
when  anything  to  be  done  for  the  public  welfare 
is  proposed  in  these  directions.  And  I  am  quite 
certain  that  the  motives  for  disagreement  and  the 
means  for  securing  agreement  would  be  far  less 
sinister  and  corrupt  in  the  case  of  the  professional 
men  if  they  were  completely  entrusted  with  these 
matters  of  public  welfare  than  is  now  the  case  with 
the  politicians  who  have  them  in  control.  The  engi- 
neers are  the  men  who  know  best  how  the  public 
works  are  to  be  made  conducive  to  the  public  wel- 
fare. The  chemists  know  best  what  chemical  com- 
pounds are  injurious,  what  harmless,  what  bene- 
ficial for  nourishment  or  for  the  curing  of  disease. 
The  surgeons  and  doctors  know  better  than  the 
average  of  the  people  how  vivisection  and  vaccina- 
tion and  antitoxins  may  best  be  made  contributory 
to  the  public  weal ;  and  so  on,  and  so  on,  through 
all  the  ranks  of  the  men  devoted  to  these  various 
professions.  Even  where  these  men  are  not  teachers 
in  the  strictly  academical  application  of  the  word, 
they  are  often  no  less  really  beneficent  instructors 
of  the  people  in  such  matters.  Agricultural 
schools,  agricultural  stations  and  articles  written 
by  the  men  employed  in  them  are  important  ways 
in  which  the  professional  investigator  and  teacher 
is  constantly  conferring  the  greatest  benefit  upon 
the  public. 


256    THE  TEACHER*8  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

The  securing  of  all  kinds  of  physical  welfare  for 
the  vast  multitudes  of  our  growing  population  is 
becoming  more  and  more  a  matter  for  instruction 
and,  therefore,  a  matter  for  the  teacher.  Nor  are 
the  superiority  over  the  average  of  the  community 
and  the  responsibility  which  it  imposes,  and  the 
opportunity  which  it  offers,  confined  to  the  experts 
in  the  cities  and  more  populous  communities. 
More  than  the  average  man  or  woman,  the  teacher 
in  the  smaller  communities  and  in  the  country  is 
aware  of  the  progress  being  made  in  the  particu- 
lar sciences  which  deal  with  the  conditions  that 
contribute  to  the  physical  and  sanitary  welfare  of 
the  people.  His  general  education  is  nowadays 
such  that  he  has  come  to  know,  as  most  of  the  men 
and  women  do  not  know,  what  men  ought  to  eat 
and  drink;  how  they  ought  to  clothe  themselves 
if  they  desire  health  rather  than  mere  display ;  how 
to  escape  sickness  and  secure  a  better  measure  of 
health;  what  prevalent  opinions  are  well  founded 
and  what  are  pernicious  superstitions.  It  is  true 
that  the  so-called  common  people  of  the  country 
and  of  the  town  are  apt  to  resent  anything  which 
savors  of  interference,  or  has  the  air  of  assumed 
superiority  and  pretended  condescension;  but  this 
is  where  the  need  and  benefits  of  tactfulness,  as 
something  beyond  mere  infonnation  and  good- 
will, are  especially  apparent. 

The  average  teacher  is  also  much  better  informed 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       257 

than  the  average  of  the  rest  of  the  community  as 
to  what  is  good  for  the  mental  and  moral  welfare 
of  the  public.  He  knows,  as  most  of  the  others 
do  not,  the  constitution  of  the  country,  the  prin- 
ciples of  its  political  organization,  the  stimulating 
and  inspiring  examples  of  its  historical  develop- 
ment. And  in  these  days  when  the  nation  has  so 
Badly  forgotten  so  much  of  all  this,  and  is  so  in 
danger  of  being  swept  from  its  very  foundations 
by  the  incoming  tides  of  foreign  immigration  and 
by  the  defection  of  its  own  sons  and  daughters,  the 
chance  is  good  that  the  teacher  may  do  something 
of  no  small  value  for  the  public  welfare  by  instruc- 
tion and  example  in  matters  such  as  these. 

The  average  teacher  knows  better  than  the  aver- 
age man  or  woman  what  is  doing,  and  what  has 
been  done,  for  the  improvement  of  education,  both 
at  home  and  abroad.  I  can  not  say  that  I  think  the 
fruits  of  the  large  amount  of  lecturing  and  writing 
on  what  is  called  '* pedagogy,"  which  has  been  so 
loudly  and  extensively  advertised,  have  been  worth 
the  full  price  of  their  cost.  But  they  have  had  a 
prospective  value  which  is  far  greater  than  their 
present  value.  They  have  done  much  toward  re- 
vealing in  clearer  light  some  of  today's  evils  and 
have  set  in  motion  thoughts  and  plans  for  their 
removal.  With  all  this  confusion  of  practise,  of 
opinions,  and  of  ideals,  on  the  general  subject  of 
education,  it  has  not  been  easy  for  the  workman, 


258    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

however  isolated  from  his  fellow  experimenters,  to 
remain  wholly  unacquainted.  The  books  on  edu- 
cation which  he  reads,  the  text-books  which  he 
selects  or  which  he  is  compelled  to  use  by  the  selec- 
tion of  others,  the  private  conversations  he  has 
with  other  teachers,  over  the  experiences  of  the 
craft,  the  speeches  and  papers  to  which  he  lis- 
tens at  such  conventions  as  he  is  able  to  attend — 
all  these  ways  of  stirring  up  interest,  exciting  re- 
flection and  forming  opinion,  necessarily  make  the 
teachers  of  the  country  more  alert  and  well- 
informed,  if  not  vastly  more  wise  than  the  aver- 
age of  the  people,  as  to  what  is  doing  and  what 
ought  to  be  done  for  the  improvement  of  our 
educational  system.  By  taking  some  worthy  part 
in  the  theoretical  and  the  practical  solution  of 
these  educational  problems  the  teachers  as  a  class 
can  contribute  much  to  the  public  welfare  in  the 
future. 

The  average  teacher  knows  better  than  the  aver- 
age of  the  people  what  is  the  best  literature,  both 
of  ancient  and  of  modem  times,  and  what  are  the 
best  of  the  books  that  are  coming  out  from  both 
the  native  and  the  foreign  presses  of  the  present 
time.  The  teachers  know  better  than  do  the  people 
at  large  what  is  the  correct  and  elegant  use  of  the 
English  language.  I  fear  it  must  be  confessed  that 
many  trashy  and  unworthy  books  are  read  by  the 
professional  class  to  which  we  belong,  and  that  a 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER        259 

very  considerable  number  of  the  school-ma  'ams  and 
school-masters  of  the  country  somewhat  habitually 
indulge  themselves  in  poor  and  even  slangy  Eng- 
lish. Undoubtedly,  some  of  these  teachers  do  not 
know  any  better.  But  I  am  speaking  of  the  aver- 
age of  this  class  as  compared  with  the  average  of 
the  people  at  large.  And  certainly  the  teachers  of 
the  country  can  contribute  liberally  to  the  circu- 
lation of  the  best  books  and  to  the  taste  for  the 
best  literature  of  all  ages  and  all  peoples.  They 
can  have  much  to  say  as  to  what  books  shall  be  in, 
and  what  books  shall  be  kept  out  of,  the  increasing 
number  of  public  libraries  that  are  being  erected 
and  endowed  thruout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
the  land.  If  they  read  good  books  themselves  and 
become  affectionately  familiar  with  their  contents, 
they  can  disseminate  their  fine  ideas  and  the  fine 
manner  of  expressing  fine  ideas  among  the  common 
people  of  the  land.  They  can  discourage  by 
example  and  by  ridicule  the  habit  of  slovenly  and 
vulgar  speech,  which  is  everywhere  so  distressingly 
prevalent  with  us  at  the  present  time.  Let  me  not 
be  misunderstood  on  this  point.  I  am  not  advo- 
cating what  is  finical  or  superficially  elegant  in 
daily  speech ;  or  the  cultivation  of  a  speciously  ele- 
gant style  of  epistolatory  or  other  composition; 
or  the  total  abstinence  of  slang;  or  even  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  judicious  oath,  where  the  object  of  con- 
demnation is  some  deed  or  some  person  especially 


260    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

outrageous.  But  I  am  saying  that,  in  general,  the 
public  welfare  would  be  greatly  served  if  our 
youth  and  children  could  be  taught  to  use  the 
mother  tongue  with  sincerity,  simplicity  and  essen- 
tially good  judgment  and  good  taste,  and  to  avoid 
the  unceasing  use  of  vulgar  slang  and  senseless 
exaggeration.  For  a  man's  speech  not  only  betray- 
eth,  but  also  herayeth  or  defiles  him.  Perhaps,  also, 
by  the  united  effort  of  all  the  teachers  in  the  pub- 
lic schools  we  might  have  our  boys  and  girls  fitted 
for  college  so  that  they  could  express  single  sen- 
tences in  correct  English  and  even  spell  correctly 
most  of  the  words  in  ordinary  use ;  or  at  least  know 
how  to  look  them  up  in  the  dictionary. 

And  best  of  all,  the  average  teacher  is  in  a  posi- 
tion to  know  better  than  the  average  man  or  woman 
how  to  inquire,  to  study  and  to  think ;  what  is  good 
for  the  mind  and  the  heart  and  how  to  furnish  the 
mind  well  and  to  ennoble  and  purify  the  affections. 
The  average  common-school  teacher  may  not  be  a 
very  cultivated,  intellectual  and  noble  personality, 
but  he  or  she  is  undoubtedly,  taking  the  average, 
above  the  average  of  the  entire  community,  both 
mentally  and  morally. 

The  teacher's  ideal  of  contributing  to  the  pub- 
lic welfare  is  made  more  practicable  by  the  fact 
that  the  public  naturally  looks  to  its  teachers  for 
instruction  and  leadership  in  several  important 
matters  touching  the  public  welfare.     Altho  we 


THE  CHIEF  IDEALS  OF  THE  TEACHER       261 

have  departed  far,  as  a  nation,  from  that  estimate 
of  the  value  of  the  profession  which  still  lingers 
in  China  and  in  the  Orient  generally,  and  altho 
learning  and  wisdom  have  become  words  in  certain 
quarters  to  juggle  with  or  to  treat  with  scorn,  the 
common  people  still  look  to  those  whom  they  regard 
as  sufficiently  educated  to  be  entrusted  with  the 
education  of  their  children,  with  a  continued  con- 
fidence in  their  judgment  and  their  good  will.  In 
their  own  hearts,  the  people  of  the  United  States 
know  that  their  teachers  are,  for  wisdom  and  for 
honesty,  on  the  whole,  much  more  trustworthy  and 
unselfish  than  their  politicians  or  their  traders. 
And  as  the  public  system  of  education  develops, 
even  the  smaller  communities  are  more  likely  to 
have  among  the  number  of  those  who  are  instruct- 
ing their  children  those  who  have  special  knowledge 
in  various  branches  and  departments  of  knowledge. 
The  teachers  as  a  class  will  then  be  more  **  looked 
up  to'*  than  they  are  at  the  present  day.  The 
fact  that  one  is  looked  up  to  by  the  public  makes 
one  much  more  able  to  contribute  generously  to 
the  welfare  of  the  same  public. 

Again,  the  very  character  of  the  teacher's  work 
is  such  as  to  make  it  easier  for  him  to  do  certain 
favors  for  the  public  which  employs  him.  He  can 
plead  truthfully  and  effectively  for  certain  im- 
provements in  the  sanitary,  mental  and  moral  con- 
dition of  the  community  on  the  ground  that  these 


262    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

improvements  are  necessary  for  the  welfare  of  its 
children  and  youth.  The  school-houses  must  not 
be  poorly  lighted  and  ill-ventilated.  The  children 
must  not  be  sent  to  school  unwashed,  or  allowed 
to  go  thru  the  school  day  unfed.  The  authorities 
must  not  allow  them  to  play  truant  or  to  misbe- 
have greatly  on  their  way  to  and  from  the  school. 
Arrangements  must  be  such  that  a  proper  modesty 
can  be  conserved  as  between  the  sexes.  The  best 
available  of  text-books  must  be  provided  and  as 
much  of  an  equipment  of  blackboards,  maps,  charts, 
apparatus  and  other  appliances  for  successful  in- 
struction as  is  possible  must  be  provided.  Col- 
leagues and  subordinates  must  have  a  sufficient 
equipment  to  bear  their  part  in  the  work  of  educa- 
tion. The  saloon  and  other  corrupting  influences 
must  be  kept  at  a  distance  from  the  school-house.  A 
certain  amount  of  discipline  must  be  enforced  in 
spite  of  any  attempted  interference  from  parental 
or  political  influence.  Surely  no  other  class  in  the 
community  is  so  well  fitted,  either  by  their  knowl- 
edge or  their  position,  to  plead  for  and  to  secure 
these  primary  needs  of  the  best  system  of  public 
education  as  are  the  teachers  of  the  country.  This 
sort  of  influence  may  also  be  extended  to  the 
esthetical  environment  of  the  children  and  youth, 
not  only  in  the  school-room  and  about  the  school- 
house,  but  also  in  the  home,  the  village  and  the 
surrounding   country.      The   present   attempts   to 


THE   FUNCTION    OF   THE    TEACHER  263 

give  to  all  the  pupils  of  the  public  schools  some 
acquaintance  and  appreciative  feeling,  as  directed 
toward  what  is  beautiful  in  nature  and  in  art,  is 
destined  to  be  of  inestimable  benefit  to  the  whole 
Republic.  It  may  not  result  in  increasing  the 
number  of  really  great  painters,  sculptors  or  mu- 
sicians; and  it  is  not  desirable  that  it  should  in- 
crease the  number  of  dabblers  in  these  various 
forms  of  art.  But  it  can  scarcely  fail  to  tend  to- 
ward the  increase  of  the  number  of  refined  and 
happy,  although  lowly  homes,  and  it  may  easily 
make  more  popular  the  combination  of  real  beauty 
with  cheapness  of  manufacture,  in  which  the  Japa- 
nese so  greatly  excel.  (Of  course  I  do  not  have 
in  mind  the  cheap  things  sent  to  this  country  for 
sale  from  Japan;  they  are  not  native  Japanese 
products  at  all,  but  wretched  imitations  of  the 
worst  forms  of  German  manufacture,  for  the  most 
part.) 

The  various  ways  in  which  teachers  may  co-oper- 
ate to  bring  about  an  increase  in  the  public  wel- 
fare are  too  familiar  with  all  of  you  to  need  dis- 
cussion at  length.  University  and  school-extension 
lectures  furnish  one  means  for  the  teacher  to  en- 
large the  sphere  of  his  public  influence.  There  are 
some  things,  if  only  a  very  few,  which  the  teacher 
may  tell,  not  only  to  his  pupils,  but  also  to  a  select 
number  outside  the  school-room.  Leading  or  par- 
ticipating in  excursions  of  an  improving,  as  well 


264    TEE  TEAGEER'8  PRACTICAL  PEIL080PEY 

as  recreative  sort,  after  the  fashion  provided  for 
in  Switzerland,  to  which  I  have  already  referred, 
offers  another  means  of  extending  one's  influence. 
The  teachers  are  most  important  factors  in  the  for- 
mation of  clubs,  reading  circles,  lyceums  and  other 
similar  means  for  bringing  the  benefits  of  knowl- 
edge to  a  widening  circle  of  the  people.  In  all 
other  ways  the  teacher  should  be  recognized  as  a 
**  public-spirited  person.  *'  But  after  thinking  up 
all  these  ways  of  increasing  our  work  for  the  ideal 
of  the  public  good,  we  return  in  thought  to  the 
special  opportunity  afforded  by  the  work  of  teach- 
ing itself.  The  good  teacher  can  not  help  con- 
tributing something  by  way  of  his  own  special 
manufacture  to  the  increase  of  the  general  good. 
For  his  is  the  manufacture  of  good  men  and  good 
women;  and  it  is  only  such  men  and  women  that 
can  secure  the  general  good. 


Part  IV 

THE  TEACHER'S  RELATION 
TO  SOCIETY  AND  THE  STATE 


MS 


LECTURE  XIII 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIETY: 
DEPENDENT  ON  EDUCATION 

I  confess  to  you  frankly  that  from  this  time  on 
I  would  gladly  much  enlarge  and  almost  completely 
change  the  character  of  my  audience.  Enough, 
perhaps,  has  already  been  said  of  the  more  specific 
relations  in  which  the  teacher  stands  toward  the 
welfare  of  society  and  toward  the  stability,  and 
what  I  will  venture  to  call  the  *' spiritual,"  prog- 
ress of  the  state— at  least,  so  far  as  the  teachers 
are  especially  bound  to  take  note  of  all  this.  But 
I  am  now  going  to  make  a  few  observations  on  the 
national  system  of  education,  in  its  larger,  more 
popular  aspects,  and  in  a  way  less  limited  to  the 
duties  of  a  particular  class.  In  a  word,  I  am  going 
to  consider  the  subject  of  education  in  a  more 
ethnic  way.  For  this  reason  I  should  like,  as  I  have 
already  said,  to  address  those  who  make  the  laws, 
and  control  the  institutions,  which  provide  the 
educational  facilities  of  the  country,  define  its 
educational  policy,  and  arrange  and  supply  the 
material  for  carrying  into  effect  its  educational 
system.  In  a  word,  I  should  like  to  get  at  the 
public,  whose  system  it  is  that  is  working  out  such 

267 


268    THE  TEACHER'S  FBACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

large  results  for  the  good  or  the  ill  of  society  and  of 
our  political  and  national  institutions.  But  after 
all,  it  is  not  only  worth  while  for  us  as  belonging 
to  the  class  of  professional  teachers,  to  be  ever 
learners  and  students  of  these  wider  relations ;  but, 
as  has,  I  trust,  been  made  sufficiently  clear,  if  we 
are  intelligent  and  wise  in  our  convictions,  and 
earnest  and  unselfish  in  action,  we  can  as  a  class 
do  much  to  bring  about  desirable  changes. 

Let  us,  first  of  all,  strive  to  place  our  thoughts 
and  our  resolves  upon  a  rational  and  historical 
basis.  As  a  help  to  this  end,  we  may  briefly  con- 
sider the  dependence  of  society  for  its  welfare  and 
for  its  advancement,  upon  the  instruction  and  devel- 
opment of  its  individual  members.  This  dependence 
is  partly  obscure,  indirect  and  pretty  strictly  lim- 
ited; and  it  is  partly  more  obvious,  direct  and 
subject  to  limitations  which  do  not  constitute  irre- 
movable obstacles.  The  former  kind  of  dependence 
operates  chiefly  through  two  classes  of  factors  or 
conditions  which  determine  the  social  welfare.  The 
first  of  these  are  the  physical  conditions  which 
Nature  has  set  in  such  fashion  that  no  kind  or 
amount  of  education,  scientific  and  moral,  can  to 
any  considerable  extent,  overcome  them.  For 
example,  education  could  not  advance  beyond  a 
certain  relative  low  level  the  social  and  economic 
welfare  of  the  inhabitants  of  Labrador  or  Pata- 
gonia.    Increase  of  scientific  knowledge  can  not 


TEE   DEVELOPMENT    OF    SOCIETY  269 

find  coal  or  the  mineral  ores,  where  nature  has  not 
placed  them.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  the  planting  of 
agricultural  colleges  within  the  Arctic  Circle  would 
enable  the  dwellers  there  to  grow  cotton  and  sugar- 
cane profitably.  Education  cannot  give  equal 
opportunity  to  the  United  States  and  to  the  steppes 
of  Central  Asia;  it  cannot  make  Canada  the  coun- 
terpart of  the  Argentine  Republic;  or  render 
Alaska  the  rival  in  all  respects  of  Florida.  But  it 
could  do  much  for  the  economic  and  social  better- 
ment of  all  these  countries;  and  without  it,  the 
most  favored  of  them— it  is  at  least  conceivable- 
might  reduce  itself  in  time  below  the  level  of  the 
less  favored,  if  only  the  latter  had  learned  how  to 
make  the  most  of  its  scantier  resources.  And  if  we 
could  by  some  process  of  education  get  rid  of  the 
ignorance  and  the  immoral  greed  that  are  now 
holding  back,  rather  than  helping  forward,  the 
cause  of  fair  trade  and  mutually  profitable  com- 
merce, there  are  comparatively  few  places  in  the 
world,  where  education  and  the  discipline  of  moral 
character,  could  not  result  in  a  comfortable  degree, 
if  not  a  high  grade,  of  economic  and  social  pros- 
perity. 

Besides  these  physical  limiting  conditions  of  the 
more  difficult,  if  not  of  the  totally  unmanageable 
kind,  there  are  certain  inherited  racial  peculiari- 
ties, or  fixed  social  conditions  of  the  ancestral  order, 
which  afford  determined  and  tedious  sources  of 


270    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

opposition  to  all  the  social  betterment  that  an 
improved  system  of  education,  if  unhindered, 
might  provide.  Of  a  people,  hampered  by  such 
influences,  in  a  truly  awful  but,  I  believe,  not 
altogether  hopeless  manner,  the  Chinese  Empire 
is  today  a  notable  example.  Here  are  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  or  four  hundred  millions— and  it 
will  probably  be  some  time  before  any  census  taken 
by  the  Government  will  tell  us  which— of  people, 
whose  racial  characteristics  are  a  strange  mixture 
of  admirable  gifts  with  ancestral  habits  that  are 
rank  with  the  odor  of  mental  and  moral  corruption 
and  decay ;  and  one  of  the  most  pressing  and  dark 
problems  is  just  this— how  to  change  the  existing 
system  of  education  so  as  to  make  it  co-operate  to 
the  end  of  the  economic  and  social  betterment  of  the 
whole  body  of  the  people.  China  thus  affords  a 
notable  example  of  the  impressive  truth  that  both 
I  the  sins  and  the  virtues  of  the  preceding  genera- 
tions, in  matters  of  education  as  in  all  other  mat- 
ters, are  surely  visited  upon  the  following  gener- 
ations. There  is  no  surer  truth  for  us  to  reflect 
upon  than  that  our  educational  faults  and  failures 
will  surely  be  visited  upon  the  youth  of  the  country, 
and  through  them,  upon  the  whole  country,  down  to 
the  fourth,  or  even  to  the  tenth  generation. 

In  general,  the  present  generation,  however  well 
educated,  can  never  wholly  overcome,  and  usually 
can  not  greatly  alter,  the  accumulation  of  unfavor- 


THE    DEVELOPMENT    OF    SOCIETY  271 

able  social  conditons  which  come  to  it  from  the 
past.  We  are  pretty  tightly  bound  by  our  fore- 
bears, whether  for  good  or  for  evil,  however  much 
we  may  boast  of  our  ability  to  *'make  all  things 
new,  *  *  and  however  much  we  may  struggle  to  kick 
off  the  cords  with  which  they  have  bound  us.  We 
may  as  well  confess  this  at  once;  we  can  not  cut 
ourselves  loose  from  the  past;  we  do  not  know  so 
very  much  more  about  education,  as  a  matter  that 
fits  men  and  women  to  act  their  part  well  in  the 
social  whole,  than  our  fathers  did.  We  have 
upset,  or  thrown  into  the  melting-pot,  many,  many, 
old  things:  we  are  discoverers  and  doers  of  a  few 
good  new  things.  But  we  have  not  really  settled 
many  important  problems:  much  of  our  so-called 
pedagogy  is  painfully  poor  stuff,  and  is  coming  to 
be  so  regarded  by  the  most  sensible  part  of  the 
public  interested  in  education.  And  just  now  one 
of  the  most  hopeful  tendencies  in  educational  circles 
is  to  go  backward,  at  least  by  a  process  of  reflec- 
tive examination,  and  consider  anew  in  what 
respects  we  have  been  wise,  and  in  what  respects 
we  have  been  foolish,  in  departing  so  far  and  so  I 
rapidly  from  the  old-time  system  of  education. 

Whatever  our  judgment  or  our  action  may  be, 
in  our  comparison  of  the  old  with  the  new,  we  need 
to  remember  that  human  nature,  and  child  nature,   ' 
do  not  change— at  least,  they  do  not  change  essen- 
tially and  in  any  short  period  of  time.    Our  day  is 


272    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

only  a  small  fraction  of  the  day  of  the  race;  our 
civilization  is  not  the  last  word  of  progress;  and 
perhaps,  we  Americans  are  not  God's  highest  and 
final  expression  to  the  Divine  ideal  of  humanity. 
At  any  rate,  we  shall  have  to  accept  the  fact,  that 
every  generation  is  chiefly  indebted  for  what  it  is 
and  for  what  it  seems,  of  itself,  to  do,  to  countless 
generations  of  the  past ;  and  also,  that  no  one  gen- 
eration can  proceed  wisely  or  safely  on  the  assump- 
tion that  it  can  all  at  once  break  wholly  away  from 
that  past. 

An  educated  public  of  the  present  day  can,  how- 
ever, do  something  materially  to  improve  its  eco- 
nomic and  social  inheritance ;  and  if  only  it  could 
all  be  educated,  morally  as  well  as  scientifically, 
and  could  be  united  by  good-will  in  a  common 
effort,  an  educated  public  could  do  much  to  trans- 
form its  inheritance.  But  plans  to  secure  such  a 
public,  all  of  a  sudden,  as  it  were,  may  be  looked 
upon  somewhat  as  we  should  look  upon  the  motion, 
said  once  to  have  been  facetiously  made  in  an 
ecclesiastical  Convention,  for  the  abolition  of  orig- 
inal sin ! 

As  an  offset,  or  complement,  of  the  principle 
that  great  changes  require  a  long  time  to  effect, 
we  have  the  principle  that  nations,  like  individuals, 
have  crises  in  their  intellectual,  moral,  and  relig- 
ious development,  when  all  manner  of  changes, 
either  for  the  better  or  for  the  worse,  are  greatly 


TEE   DEVELOPMENT    OF   SOCIETY  273 

accelerated.  These  crises  are  in  part  brought  about 
by  the  prevalent  system  of  instruction  and  disci- 
pline of  the  social  and  political  organization;  but 
they  themselves  give  opportunity  for  relatively 
sharp  and  sudden  changes  in  the  policy  which  regu- 
lates the  prevalent  system.  Some  such  crisis,  or 
succession  of  crises,  seems  to  have  overtaken  the 
economic  and  social  development  of  the  American 
nation  at  the  present  time.  It  probably,  therefore, 
affords  opportunity  for  marked  and  rapid  changes 
in  that  educational  system  upon  which  the  plans 
for  all  economic  and  social  betterment  are  so 
dependent. 

Thoughts  like  those  which  have  just  been  uttered 
introduce  us  to  a  consideration  of  the  more  direct 
and  immediate  relations  between  the  instruction 
and  discipline  of  the  individual  members  of  society 
and  the  promotion  of  the  social  welfare.  Of  course, 
it  is  obvious  commonplace  to  say  that,  if  all  the 
individuals  of  any  community  are  as  well  instructed 
and  disciplined  as  can  be,  then  the  society  of  which 
they  are  individual  members  will  already  have  been 
as  much  improved  as  education  can  improve  it. 
But,  as  I  said  in  a  previous  lecture,  it  is  my  grow- 
ing belief  that,  in  the  making  of  laws,  the  reform- 
ing of  evil  physical  and  moral  conditions,  and  in 
the  whole  system  of  instituting  and  administering 
our  system  of  education,  we  are  too  much  losing 
sight  of  the  concrete  individual  in  a  collective,  but 


274    THE  TEACHER*8  PRACTICAL  PHILOBOPHY 

entirely  mythical  personality,  called  ** society."  In 
my  judgment,  we  shall  never  reach  the  much-to-be- 
desired  result  simply  by  multiplying*  societies.  It 
is  too  true  that,  of  many  of  the  existing  societies 
the  net  result  is  a  maximum  of  committees,  offi- 
cers, and  consequently  of  expense,  and  a  minimum 
of  efficient  workers  who  are  fitted  for  the  work  they 
are  employed  to  undertake;  and  who  are  brought 
into  close-fitting  and  fruitful  relations  with  the 
persona  in  whose  behalf  the  work  is  understood  to 
be  initiated  and  conducted.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  is  increasing  need  of  prolonged  individual 
influence,  which  is  made  directly  to  bear  upon  the 
multiplying  of  that  sort  of  well-informed  and  well- 
disposed  individuals  out  of  whom  a  better  social 
whole  must  be  constituted.  Now  it  is  the  business 
of  education,  in  its  relation  to  the  economic  and 
social  betterment  of  society,  to  furnish  a  supply  of 
just  such  well-informed  and  well-disposed  individ- 
uals. I  say  well-informed  and  well-disposed.  For 
here  again  we  come  upon  the  thought  that  any 
system  of  education  which  does  not  result  in  the 
formation  of  a  sound  and  noble  and  serviceable 

'  character,  fails  of  reaching  the  most  important 
and  highest  aim  of  education. 

-''But  any  national  system  of  education,  in  order 
to  fulfill  its  purposes  more  nearly  in  the  complete 
fashion,  must  also  educate  the  individuals  brought 
up  under  it,  so  as  to  sustain  proper  relations  to 


THE   DEVELOPMENT    OF    SOCIETY  275 

one  another  in  the  varied  circumstances  and  condi- 
tions of  the  national  life.  It  must  include  arrange- 
menta  for  putting  the  individual  units  together  in 
a  way  to  secure  the  life  and  development  of  the 
whole.  The  various  classes,  trades,  businesses, 
professions,  local  and  national  officials,  must  be 
educated  and  trained,  each  in  its  own  craft,  busi- 
ness, profession,  official  function;  and  also  each 
must  know  its  own  place  and  standing  toward  the 
others,  on  all  of  which  the  welfare  of  society  is 
dependent.  But  what  can  be  more  lamentably 
defective  than  the  condition  of  our  system  of  edu- 
cation, in  this  regard,  at  the  present  time? 

In  former  days  and  other  lands,  and  still  in  the 
Orient  generally,  the  social  classes  are  found  to  be 
separated  by  lines  distinctly  drawn;  the  different 
employments  were  more  strictly  classified  and  the 
rights  and  duties  of  each  more  carefully  defined. 
The  apprentice  knew  his  place,  and  the  master 
knew  his  privileges.  Husband,  and  wife,  and 
children,  were  carefully  instructed  and  made  by 
comparatively  unvarying  custom,  to  know  and  to 
keep  the  positions  respectively  belonging  to  them. 
But,  whether  for  the  better  or  the  worse,  we  have 
changed  all  this.  At  any  rate,  it  is  not  at  all  likely 
that  we  shall  ever  revert  to  the  old  conditions ;  and 
I  think  that,  making  the  proper  allowances,  we 
might  all  agree  that  the  changes,  if  they  have  not 
been,  are  certainly  going  to  be,  on  the  whole,  much 


276    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

for  the  better.  But,  in  order  to  secure  the  advan- 
tages to  society  at  large  which  these  changes  make 
inherently  possible,  must  we  not  have  our  system 
of  education  so  adapted  to  these  changes  that  eachi 
individual  shall  be  better  fitted  than  is  at  present* 
possible,  to  act  as  a  well-disposed  and  well-informed 
individual  in  the  particular  position  which  he 
assumes  to  occupy  ?  Men  ought  not  to  be  appointed 
to  diplomatic  positions  who  know  nothing  of  the 
duties,  responsibilities,  and  the  amenities  of  diplo- 
macy ;  or  who  know  little  or  nothing  of  the  history 
and  institutions  of  the  countries  to  which  they  are 
sent.  Men  should  not  be  permitted  to  make  our 
laws,  whether  at  the  national  or  the  state  capitals, 
or  in  the  municipality,  who  know  and  care  nothing 
about  the  business,  and  especially  about  the  ethics, 
of  law-making.  Neither  trusts  nor  trade-unions 
should  be  officered  and  run  by  men  who  know  and 
care  nothing  about  the  rights  and  the  duties 
implied  in  both  these  forms  of  organization,  and 
about  the  ethics  of  the  relations  existing,  of  neces- 
sity, between  them.  Boys  and  girls  should  not  be 
allowed  to  marry,  breed  children,  and  get  divorced, 
without  some  better  knowledge  of,  and  more  solemn 
regard  for,  what  is  involved  in  all  this.  Yes,  and 
if  we  are  going  to  educate  everybody  at  the  public 
expense,  why  should  not  our  cooks  and  housemaids 
be  made  to  know  their  rights  and  duties  as  toward 
their  mistresses;  and  the  mistresses,  in  their  turn, 


TEE   DEVELOPMENT    OF   SOCIETY  277 

their  rights  and  duties  as  toward  their  cooks  and 
housemaids  ? 

Now,  I  am  far  enough  from  thinking  that  all 
these  negative  and  positive  virtues  can  be  secured 
and  enforced  by  any  amount  of  legal  enactments. 
But  I  do  believe  that  something  well  worth  the  cost 
could  be  secured  by  wise  changes  and  improvements 
in  our  system  of  public-school  and  university  edu- 
cation. Indeed,  the  battle  would  be  more  than  half 
won,  if  these  institutions  could  stem  the  tide  of 
evil  influences  constantly  arising  from  the  prevalent 
ignorance  and  carelessness  with  regard  to  truths  of 
fact  and  principles  of  righteousness.  "Well-informed 
and  well-disposed  individuals,  living  and  acting  in 
all  these  economic  and  social  relations  to  one 
another,  are  already  a  society  whose  social  welfare 
is  secure. 

The  almost  absolute  dependence  of  the  social 
progress  of  any  people  upon  the  extent  and  charac- 
ter of  the  education  given  to  the  individuals  of 
which  society  is  composed  is  sufficiently  obvious. 
In  saying  this,  we  are,  indeed,  considering  **  social 
progress, ' '  only  in  so  far  as  any  society  can  control 
the  conditions  of  its  own  process ;  and  we  are  con- 
sidering *' education,"  in  that  comprehensive  way, 
to  which  our  thought  was  introduced  in  the  first 
lecture.  But  even  with  these  limitations,  land 
although  the  professional  teachers  are  always  lim- 
ited in  other  less  unavoidable  ways,  the  class,  by 


278    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

virtue  of  its  functions,  its  equipment,  and  its  ideals, 
is  one  of  the  most  powerful  of  forces  for  the  eco- 
nomic and  social  betterment  of  the  people  of  any 
country. 

I  may  now  rapidly  pass  in  review — giving  an 
example  or  two  under  each  head — some  of  the  more 
particular  forms  of  the  dependence  of  society,  for 
its  welfare  and  progress,  upon  the  education  of  the 
people.  A  measure  of  particularity  seems  desir- 
able, because,  while  all  Americans  spontaneously 
recognize  the  value  of  education,  and  are  ready- 
often  inordinately— to  boast  of  their  own  superi- 
ority over  other  countries  in  this  respect,  they  are 
quite  too  unwilling  to  let  its  maxims  and  regula- 
tions and  conclusions  influence  and  control  them, 
when  it  is  a  matter  of  greed  or  self-interest  which 
stands  in  the  way.  And  this  is  most  amply  illustra- 
ted by  the  first  of  the  particulars  to  which  I  now 
call  your  attention. 

Society  is  dependent  for  its  welfare  upon  an  edu- 
cated knowledge  and  intelligent  use  of  its  material 
resources.  It  is  science  which  warns  us  against  the 
useless  waste  of  these  material  resources.  Every- 
where, and  in  all  history,  uneducated  man  is  uneco- 
nomical. He  is  a  spendthrift,  wherever  he  can  be, 
of  the  good  things  which  nature  has  provided  for 
his  use.  Amongst  savage  peoples  this  wastefulness 
is  chiefly  the  result  of  ignorance,  coupled  with  the 
hard  and  uncertain  physical  and  economic  condi' 


THE   DEVELOPMENT    OF   SOCIETY  279 

tions  of  their  environment.  In  decayed  civiliza- 
tions, as  for  example,  in  Korea,  ignorance  is 
coupled  with  a  grasping  and  corrupt  Government. 
As  one  of  the  natives  said  to  a  friend  of  mine, 
**  Formerly,  when  there  was  good  year,  we  ate  up 
all  the  rice  that  the  Government  did  not  steal ;  when 
there  was  a  bad  year,  we  starved."  With  us,  the 
shameful  waste  of  the  national  resources  which  has 
gone  on  for  fifty  and  more  years,  has  mainly  been 
due  to  the  avarice  of  private  individuals  and  cor- 
porations, encouraged  or  permitted  by  the  Govern- 
ment—an avarice,  which,  while  it  is  given  to  self- 
interested  forms  of  economy,  is  often  most  waste- 
ful of  that  in  which  society  has  a  permanent  inter- 
est. Education,  with  a  strong  leaning  to  the  moral 
side,  must  combine  with  laws  enacted  under  the 
influence  of  science,  to  check  this  disgraceful  waste 
of  the  material  necessary  for  the  permanent  social 
welfare. 

It  is  science,  also,  which  tells  us  how  to  discover, 
appropriate,  and  increase  or  improve,  the  same 
material  resources.  It  is  science  which  shows  us 
how  to  secure  the  improved  health  and  strength, 
and  the  prolonged  life  of  the  individual  members 
of  society— thus  promoting  the  welfare  of  society. 
But  I  have  already  said  enough  to  enforce  and 
illustrate  these  contentions.  Only  it  must  be  educa- 
tion that  includes  training  in  social  morality  as 
well  as  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  social  econ- 


280    TEE  TEACEER'8  PRACTICAL  PEILOSOPEY 

omy,  if  any  great  amount  of  practical  benefit  is  to 
result.  And  I  take  this  occasion  to  affirm  that,  in  my 
judgment,  those  teachers  and  writers  on  economics 
and  sociology,  so-called,  who  are  trying  to  leave 
ethics  out  of  their  account,  and  even  those  who  are 
not  positively  emphasizing  the  ethical  side  in  their 
account,  can  not  do  so  much  for  the  social  welfare 
by  way  of  increasing  knowledge,  as  they  are  sure  to 
do  against  it  by  way  of  tolerating  or  apologizing 
for  immorality. 

But  we  may  dwell  more  tenderly  on  the  thoughts 
that  come  to  the  front  as  we  consider  the  depen- 
dence of  society  for  its  refined  pleasures  upon  edu- 
cation in  the  appreciation  and  love  of  nature, 
literature,  art  and  philosophy.  The  social  welfare 
and  social  progress  of  any  people  are  to  a  large 
extent  dependent  upon  the  way  in  which  they  take 
their  recreations,  and  spend  those  hours  and  mo- 
ments which  they  can  snatch  from  the  life  of  daily 
occupation  and  toil.  For  individuals,  or  for  the 
people,  who  like  so  many  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race, 
demand  strong  excitement  in  order  to  *'whip  up** 
the  feelings  of  pleasure,  or  who,  like  the  Chinese, 
resort  to  the  deadening  influences  of  a  drug  in 
order  to  relieve  the  pains  of  poverty  and  disease, 
or  the  sorrows  of  loss,  or  the  depression  of  ennui, 
there  is  a  most  heavy  handicap  placed  upon  the 
social  welfare  by  the  character  of  their  amusements. 
This  might  be  illustrated  by  the  gross  drunkenness 


TEE   DEVELOPMENT    OF   SOCIETY  281 

and  bestial  lust  of  London,  Edinburgh,  and  Glas- 
gow; by  the  mad  dances,  or  insane  *'joy  rides"  of 
the  French  and  the  American;  by  the  increasing 
demand  for  club-life  on  the  part  of  the  women  of 
this  country  and  of  Europe. 

Now,  there  is  scarcely  any  other  way  in  which 
the  degree  of  real  refinement  of  mind  and  heart  of 
any  community  may  be  more  surely  tested  than  by 
the  character  of  its  recreations  and  amusements. 
The  quiet  enjoyment  of  Nature  and  her  products 
of  trees  and  flowers  and  birds,  and  even  of  curious 
insects  and  freaks  of  plant  life ;  the  entertainment 
afforded  by  every  form  of  really  good  art  with  its 
persistent  refusal  to  allow  its  ideals  to  bow  down 
and  worship  before  the  gods  of  mammon  or  of  lust, 
or  to  burn  the  nauseous  incense  of  sensationalism; 
the  still  hours  spent  with  good  books  that  tell  the 
story  of  lives  worthy  to  be  noted,  or  record  the 
incidents  and  lessons  of  history,  or  expresss  in 
poetry  and  drama  and  romance,  the  aspirations,  the 
joys  and  sorrows,  the  failures  and  follies  and  the 
triumphs  of  human  souls— all  these  and  similar 
ways  of  spending  time  may  actually  re-create, 
rather  than  further  exhaust  and  debauch,  the 
society  that  knows  how  to  make  use  of  them.  Nor 
must  we  omit  to  mention  the  value  of  those  scenes 
and  events  in  Nature  that  stir  our  feelings  of  awe 
and  reverence,  or  the  wholesome  effect  of  reading 
and  seeing  and  studjdng  the  great  tragedies,  of 


282    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

whose  morally  purifying  effect  the  philosopher 
Aristotle  made  particular  mention,  centuries  ago. 
All  these  forms  of  amusement  are  both  marks  and 
means  of  culture  in  the  art  of  recreation. 

You  must  not  think  of  me,  however,  as  despising, 
or  even  looking  down  upon,  the  **  rag-time '^  music 
to  which  the  foreign  children  of  our  great  cities 
dance  so  gaily ;  or  the  fun  of  the  picnic  in  the  coun- 
try or  by  the  sea-shore;  or  the  cheaply  colored 
print,  or  crockery,  to  be  found  in  the  homes  of  the 
lowly,  or  even  the  show  of  marionettes  or  of  mov- 
ing pictures.  What  I  do  deprecate  and  protest 
against  is  the  strong  national  tendency  to  feel  dis- 
satisfied with  everything  which  does  not  appeal 
loudly  to  the  senses,  or  excite  the  grosser  forms  of 
emotion,  until  they  acquire  the  dreadful  habit  of 
refusing  to  respond  to  any  but  the  most  coarse  and 
irritating  kinds  of  stimuli,  or  else  relapse  into  the 
condition  of  the  individual  who  has  become  hlase  or 
is  constitutionally  afflicted  wth  ennui.  But  surely, 
light  wines  and  beer  are  less  dangerous  than  wood- 
alcohol  ;  and  going  on  foot,  as  long  as  one  keeps  to 
the  sidewalks  or  the  by-paths  in  the  country,  is  less 
fraught  with  menace  to  life  and  limb  than  racing 
along  the  highway  in  an  automobile  at  fifty  miles 
an  hour.  That  so  many  of  the  American  people 
prefer  the  latter  to  the  former  kind  of  amusement 
is  indicative  of  a  low  and  threatening  condition  of 
the  general  culture. 


THE    DEVELOPMENT    OF   SOCIETY  283 

Only  such  an  education  as  refines  the  tastes  and 
secures  the  rational  enjoyment  of  the  quieter  and 
more  intellectual  forms  of  recreation  can  success- 
fully overcome  this  tendency  to  social  weakness  and 
corruption.  But  from  its  lowest  to  its  highest 
grades,  the  system  of  education  which  is  coming  to 
prevail  in  this  country  is  contending  nobly,  and 
with  considerable  success,  with  this  evil  tendency  to 
coarse  and  sensuous  and  degrading  forms  of  amuse- 
ment. As  a  system,  it  is  striving  to  improve  the 
appreciation  and  love  of  nature,  of  art,  and  of 
good  literature,  in  the  homes  of  the  common  people. 
And  much  help  is  being  rendered  from  private 
sources,  in  gifts  large  and  small,  to  create  fresh-air 
funds,  to  support  kindergartens,  to  endow  libra- 
ries and  furnish  them  with  at  least  a  wholesome 
mixture  of  really  good  books,  to  equip  and  open 
museums  and  art  galleries,  and  to  lay  out  public 
parks  and  provide  means  for  getting  the  multitudes 
of  the  people  to  them.  And  if  in  this  hot  strife 
between  vulgarity  and  refinement,  between  the 
grossly  sensuous  and  the  really  esthetical,  between 
the  quiet  happiness  of  a  reasonable  use  of  beauty 
and  the  riotous  abandonment  to  that  kind  of  pleas- 
ure which  is  followed  by  pain  and  degradation,  the 
forces  of  education  get  and  keep  the  upper-hand, 
the  United  States  seems  likely,  above  all  other 
nations  of  the  earth  to  have  secured,  bye  and  bye, 
the  utmost  of  this  kind  of  material  for  promoting 


284    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  social  welfare.  The  one  serious  menace  to  the 
success  in  these  efforts  is,  not  the  reasonable  and 
sane  interest  in  bodily  culture,  but  the  excessive 
and  insane  devotion  to  the  rivalries  of  athletics. 

But  neither  education  in  the  particular  sciences, 
nor  culture  in  the  ''humanities,"  alone  or  in  com- 
bination, is  sufficient  to  secure  for  any  people  their 
social  welfare  and  social  progress.  We  must  pass 
on,  then,  to  consider  the  dependence  of  society  for 
its  welfare  and  progress,  upon  the  education  of  all 
classes  in  the  knowledge  and  appreciation  of  the 
principles  of  right  conduct.  It  is  possible  for  the 
individual  to  be  acquainted  with  many  forms  of 
modern  science,  and  to  have  much  of  a  refined 
interest  in  nature,  literature,  art,  and  even  philos- 
ophy, and  still  to  be  a  bad,  corrupt,  and  corrupt- 
ing member  of  society.  It  is  even  possible  for  a 
large  community,  or  the  majority  of  a  nation,  to 
make  notable  progress  in  the  sciences,  the  arts,  and 
the  refinements  of  living,  and  to  stand  still,  or 
even  to  fall  back,  morally.  But  the  reactions  to 
such  a  so-called  progress,  are,  if  not  always 
promptly  recognized,  surely  destined  to  follow. 
What  tl-e  ancient  Hebrews  knew,  but  did  not  prac- 
tise, what  Confucius  taught  the  Chinese,  but  so 
largely  as  matter  of  mere  theory,  is  as  true  today 
as  it  ever  was :  *  *  It  is  righteousness  that  exalteth 
a  nation.*'  Therefore,  education  in  morals  is  more 
important  than  education  in  science  and  art;  if. 


THE   DEVELOPMENT    OF   SOCIETY  285 

indeed,  we  could  ever  wholly  separate  the  two.  For 
the  highest  and  more  nearly  fixed  aim  of  education, 
from  the  social  point  of  view,  is  to  secure  for  all  the 
people  the  knowledge  and  the  practise  of  what  is 
right  in  conduct,  in  all  their  varied  relations  to  one 
another. 

I  fear  it  can  not  be  said  that  the  outlook  upon 
our  national  system  of  education  is  in  this  respect, 
on  the  whole,  as  fair  and  hopeful  as  in  the  other 
respects  to  which  attention  has  already  been  called. 
I  have  no  completed  plan  to  propose  for  the  intro- 
duction of  enforced  instruction  in  morals,  into  the 
public  schools  and  higher  educational  institutions, 
public  and  private,  of  the  country.  Perhaps,  I 
ought  not  to  assume  that  any  such  plan  is  at 
present  feasible ;  or  that,  if  found  feasible,  it  ought 
to  be  put  into  operation.  As  for  myself,  however, 
I  firmly  believe  that  a  certain  kind  of  instruction  in 
ethics  is  practicable  and  vitally  necessary  in  all 
our  schools,  public  and  private,  and  from  lowest 
to  highest.  But  the  subject  to  which  I  wish  now  to 
call  your  attention  is  broader  than  the  question  of 
enforced  education  in  ethics;  it  is  inclusive  of  this 
and  of  much  else.  Granted,  what  no  student  of 
human  progress  can  dispute,  that  the  morality  of 
any  people  determines  in  an  important  way  its 
social  prosperity  and  social  progress,  we  note  that 
there  are  now  in  this  country  three  great  forces  at 
work  to  determine  the  character  of  the  nation's 
moral  life  and  development.    These  are  the  family, 


286    TnE  TEAOHER'8  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  state,  and  the  school.  The  family  seems  to  me 
to  be  doing  less  and  less  for  the  moral  instruction 
and  discipline  of  the  children  and  youth  of  the 
land.  An  increasing  number  of  parents  are  either 
relatively  indifferent,  or  relatively  powerless,  to 
secure  obedience,  truthfulness,  fidelity,  industry, 
honesty,  purity — any  or  all  of  the  most  fundamen- 
tal of  the  virtues— in  the  case  of  their  children. 
The  state,  whose  laws  and  practises  need  in  this 
respect  a  most  thorough  and  radical  change,  has 
hitherto  been  the  breeder  of  immorality  among  the 
young,  almost  if  not  quite  as  much  as  it  has  been 
the  guardian  of  their  virtues.  It  is  just  waking  up 
in  spots,  as  it  were,  to  consider  and  to  devise  plans, 
not  only  for  rescue  but  for  some  more  positive  con- 
tribution to  the  moral  education  of  its  future  citi- 
zens and  rulers.  Shall  the  schools  lag  behind  in 
this  most  imperative  of  all  the  demands  made  upon 
the  educative  process?  Probably,  their  present 
influence  for  positive  good  is  much  greater  than 
that  of  the  law  and  its  officers,  and  not  much  behind 
that  of  the  family.  But  it  needs  to  be  greatly 
extended  and  strengthened;  for  the  forming  of 
character  is  the  chief  aim  in  education,  and  teach- 
ing itself  is  a  moral  and  personal  relation  of  a 
powerful  order. 

But  there  is  something  higher  and  more  subtile 
still.  The  welfare  and  progress  of  society  depend 
in  no  uncertain  way  upon  imbuing  the  people  with 
a  truly  religious  spirit  and  a  corresponding  regard 


THE    DEVELOPMENT    OF    SOCIETY  287 

for  their  fellow  men.  Doubtless,  definite  instruc- 
tion in  religious  doctrine  and  the  cultivation  of 
religious  habits  can  not  be  undertaken  by  the 
public  schools.  It  is  even  a  question  how  much  of 
this  should  be  enforced  in  private  and  sectarian 
educational  institutions.  It  accords  with  our 
national  spirit  and  traditions,  to  leave  these  things 
to  the  churches.  But  there  is  a  certain  spirit,  which 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  call ' '  religious, ' '  and  which  may- 
be, and  which  should  be,  distinctly  cultivated 
wherever  it  is  designed  to  make  the  system  of  edu- 
cation minister  in  the  highest  way  to  the  social 
welfare  and  social  progress  of  the  entire  people. 
This  spirit  is  appreciative  of  the  mystery  and 
sacredness  of  human  existence.  Its  discipline  would 
stop  the  horrible  slaughter  of  human  lives,  by 
greed,  lawlessness,  and  malice.  The  religious  spirit 
is  profoundly  reverent;  it  abhors  frivolity  and 
shallowness  and  conceit.  It  is  fraternal;  it  values 
and  cultivates  the  love  of  humanity;  it  is  the 
avowed  enemy  of  class — ^and  race— hatred;  it  has 
the  feeling  of  kindness  toward  all  suffering  and 
distressed  souls.  The  religious  spirit  is  at  once 
free  and  submissive  and  loyal.  It  cheerfully  obeys 
the  right ;  it  unflinchingly  opposes  the  wrong.  The 
cultivation  of  this  spirit  is  essential  to  the  securing 
of  a  genuine  and  lofty  social  welfare.  It  ought, 
therefore,  like  an  atmosphere,  to  pervade  all  the 
educational  system  of  the  country. 


LECTURE  XIV 

THE  NATIONAL  STABILITY  AND  PROGRESS: 
DEPENDENT  ON  EDUCATION 

The  theme  of  this  lecture  may  be  looked  upon 
as  only  an  extension  of  the  consideration  which 
occupied  us  in  the  preceding  lecture.  It  is  true 
that  the  two  words — Society  and  State — draw  our 
attention  toward  rather  different  aspects  of  our 
community  life,  its  duties,  its  rights,  its  successes 
and  its  dangers.  But  with  us,  the  State  may  be 
considered  as  society,  holding  sovereignty  over  a 
certain  amount  of  the  world's  territory  and  or- 
ganized for  purposes  of  government.  More  than 
in  certain  other  forces  of  statehood,  therefore,  the 
social  characteristics  and  social  welfare  of  the  body 
of  the  people  determine  the  character  of  the  govern- 
ment. On  this  and  on  other  accounts  the  educa- 
tion of  the  people  is,  both  directly  and  indirectly, 
more  than  ordinarily  determinative  of  the  stability 
and  progress  of  the  State.  But  again  I  must  re- 
mind you  that  I  am  using  the  word  education  in  its 
most  comprehensive  signification — as  including  all 
classes  of  means  for  forming  men  and  women  of 
sound,  serviceable  and  noble  character;  and  par- 
ticularly the  influences  that  flow  from  the  moral 

288 


THE  J^ATIONAL  STABILITY  AND  PROGRESS  289 

and  other  ideals.  It  is  the  education  which  makes 
good  citizens,  sound  and  serviceable  members  of 
the  body  politic,  in  which  the  foundations  of  na- 
tional stability  and  progress  are  laid. 

In  order  partly  to  avoid  repetition  and  partly 
to  bring  to  your  attention  certain  features  of  our 
system  of  education,  from  the  point  of  view  which 
emphasizes  their  political  value,  I  am  going  to 
treat  chiefly  what  the  doctors  might  call  the  ' '  thera- 
peutical" aspects  of  our  national  problems  as  they 
stand  related  to  this  system.  Now,  therapeutics,  as 
you  know,  has  to  do  with  the  science  and  art  of 
healing.  Our  body  politic  is  just  now  sorely  af- 
flicted with  certain  diseases,  which  it  is  no  exag- 
geration to  call  of  an  epidemic  character,  and  which 
if  left  unchecked,  are  sure  to  leave  permanent 
weakness  behind  them;  if  they  do  not  even  tend 
toward  incurable  decay  and  premature  death.  For 
the  time  has  not  yet  gone  by,  and  never  will  have 
gone  by,  when  nations  are  compelled  to  suffer  for 
the  breach  of  those  laws  on  obedience  to  which  their 
vitality  and  growth  depend. 

First  of  all,  however,  let  us  understand  that  be- 
ing stable  and  being  stationary  are  two  quite  differ- 
ent things.  Indeed,  the  two  are,  in  important  ways, 
incompatible,  both  for  individuals  and  for  states. 
To  be  sure,  ** stability"  comes  from  a  root  which 
does  mean  to  stand  still  and  ** progress"  comes 
from  a  root  which  does  mean  to  go  forward.    And 


290    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

speaking  literally,  neither  individuals  nor  nations 
can  both  stand  still  and  move  forward  at  one  and 
the  same  time.  But  neither  individuals  nor  nations 
can  be  really  stable  without  making  progress — 
especially  in  these  later  days  and  as  coming  under 
the  stimulation  and  the  dangers  of  modern  com- 
petition and  rivalries.  But  the  difficult  problem  is 
to  know  just  how  fast  and  how  far  to  move  in  any 
proposed  direction,  and  in  what  particular  direc- 
tion, among  a  number  possible,  to  inaugurate  and 
continue  the  movement.  This  is  a  problem  which 
only  education  can  solve.  And  the  solution  must 
not  be  merely  theoretical;  the  knowledge  of  when, 
what  way  and  how  far  to  go,  must  be  followed  by 
actual  movement.  Otherwise  there  can  be  neither 
stability  nor  progress.  The  education  which  solves 
this  problem  must  be  practical ;  that  is,  it  must  re- 
sult in  the  moving  of  the  will  and  in  the  control 
of  conduct,  under  the  influence  of  moral  ideals. 
Today,  Russia  is  much  less  stable  than  Germany, 
or  Great  Britain;  and  South  America  than  North 
America;  and  this  is  chiefly  because  the  former 
have  been  much  less  progressive  than  the  latter. 
And  much  as  the  wonderfully  rapid  movement  into 
new  and  strange  ways  may  seem  to  threaten  its 
stability.  Japan  is,  in  fact,  more  stable  in  every 
way  than  is  the  hitherto  comparatively  immovable 
Empire  of  China.  It  is  not  for  stagnation,  but  for 
progress  that  we  are  pleading  when  we  inquire: 


THE  NATIONAL  STABILITY  AND  PROGRESS  291 

What  are  some  of  the  evils  that  have  been  grown 
by  our  rapid  progress,  for  which  education  may  af- 
ford some  mitigation,  if  not  a  complete  cure? 

Of  such  evils  I  have  selected  for  a  brief  dis- 
cussion of  each  the  following  five:  superstition, 
lawlessness,  partizanship,  avarice  and  ambition,  and 
irreverence.  These  evils  are  all  connected  with  the 
rapid  pace  at  which  we  have  been  moving  forward ; 
if  they  do  not  grow  directly  out  of  it.  The  most 
hopeful  of  the  remedies  which  can  be  proposed  for 
them  all  must  be  somehow  found  and  administered 
by  our  system  of  education. 

It  may  seem  strange  that  I  connect  the  evil  of 
superstition  in  any  way  with  that  characteristic  of 
being  inordinately  *'fast,"  which  not  unjustly 
attaches  to  us  as  a  people.  And  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  connection  here  is  rather  subtle,  and  even, 
apparently,  somewhat  artificial.  But  let  me  call 
your  attention  to  these  incontestable  facts.  We 
have  been  exceedingly  and  even  appallingly  rapid 
about  receiving  not  only  into  the  social  whole,  but 
also  into  the  body  politic,  millions  of  the  most 
superstitious  immigrants  from  Europe.  In  our 
greed  to  get  rich  quick,  through  the  production  of 
cotton,  we  have  bred  on  our  own  soil  millions  more 
of  superstitious  negroes,  and  in  our  injudicious 
haste  at  re-construction  we  endowed  them  all  in  the 
lump,  as  it  were,  with  the  responsibilities  and 
rights  of  citizenship.     The  result  is  that  today 


292    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

there  are  large  sections  of  the  United  States  where 
the  majority  of  the  population  are  little,  if  any, 
less  superstitious  than  in  Spain,  Southern  Italy,  or 
even  Central  Africa.  And  we  are  just  now  com- 
ing to  the  somewhat  more  full  realization  of  the 
truth  of  fact  that  the  only  hope  of  mitigating,  not 
to  say  curing  this  enormous  evil,  lies  in  greatly 
strengthening  the  forces  of  education. 

Ignorance,  in  general  and  truly,  has  been  de- 
clared to  be  a  menace  to  the  stability  and  the  prog- 
ress of  the  Republic.  But  there  are  certain  forms 
of  ignorance  which  are  relatively  passive  and  inert ; 
they  may  even  operate  for  the  time  being  in  a  con- 
servative way.  But  the  forms  of  ignorance  rep- 
resented by  the  superstitions  of  multitudes  of 
people,  are,  many  of  them,  ready  at  any  time  to 
become  violently  active  and  destructive  of  property 
and  of  life.  Such  are  those  which  oppose  them- 
selves to  the  measures  necessary  for  the  material 
and  sanitary  welfare  of  the  people.  We  may  take 
a  lesson  from  the  experience  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment in  India.  When,  some  years  ago,  the  bubonic 
plague  broke  out  in  the  city  of  Bombay,  the  Gov- 
ernment at  first  tried  to  enforce  those  measures  to 
stamp  it  out  promptly,  which  are  recognized  as 
necessary  by  the  civilized  world.  But  they  were 
defeated  by  the  gross  superstitions  of  the  native 
populace,  who  attributed  the  origin  of  the  plague  to 
the  wrath  of  the  goddess,  Queen  Victoria,  over  the 


THE  NATIONAL  STABILITY  AND  PROGRESS  293 

insult  done  to  her  statue  by  some  miscreant  hav- 
ing daubed  it  with  cow-dung,  and  who  believed  that 
when  their  husbands,  brothers  and  sons  were  taken 
away  to  plague  camps  and  never  came  back  again, 
the  English  had  murdered  them  and  used  their 
blood  to  cement  bridges.  Much  the  same  thing 
has  the  Japanese  Government  in  Korea  success- 
fully coped  with  in  its  efforts  to  enforce  vaccina- 
tion and  to  stamp  out  the  cholera  in  the  city  of 
Seoul.  And  has  not  the  news  come  to  us  that  the 
inhabitants  of  Southern  Italy  have  had  to  be  pre- 
vented by  the  military  from  mobbing  foreign  mis- 
sionaries suspected  of  being  responsible  for  the  re- 
cent earthquake? 

I  presume  we  flatter  ourselves  that  under  simi- 
lar trying  circumstances  we  should  escape  from 
similar  fruits  of  superstition.  But  I  am  not  by  any 
means  sure  that  experience  would  bear  out  our 
opinion  of  our  superiority  in  this  regard.  Given 
the  exciting  causes,  with  the  same  intensity,  in 
certain  parts  of  the  country,  and  I  am  tolerably 
sure  that  it  would  not. 

It  is  in  the  sphere  of  religious  belief  and  practise 
that  a  certain  class  of  superstitions  is  most 
threatening  and  most  difficult  to  combat  by  any 
other  than  the  forces  of  education.  What  is  to 
be  done  if,  in  the  name  of  religion,  superstition 
organizes  itself  to  prevent  measures  for  securing 
the    public    against    the    ravages    of    infectious 


\ 


V 


294    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

diseases,  or  the  more  subtle  but  no  less  dangerous 
ravages  of  medical  malpractise?  What  shall  be 
done  when  in  the  name  of  religion,  superstition 
sanctions  and  encourages  polygamy  and  other 
forms  of  illicit  lust ;  or  aims  to  weaken  or  dissolve 
the  marriage  tie,  by  appeal  to  some  occult  doctrine 
of  spiritual  affinities?  Make  laws  against  these 
evil  fruits  of  spreading  superstition,  indeed,  we 
must,  and  if  pAible,  enforce,  after  we  have  en- 
acted them.  But  suppose  that  the  superstitions, 
for  lack  of  strength  to  the  forces  of  education, 
spread  until  a  large  minority,  not  to  say  a  ma- 
jority, of  the  people  come  to  hold  them ;  what,  then, 
that  is  feasible  and  profitable  can  be  done  simply 
by  law-making  ?  Even  now  we  have  not  room  enough 
in  our  jails  and  prisons  to  accommodate  one- 
fourth  of  the  number  who  would  be  condemned  to 
them  if  only  the  law-making  were  rigidly  enforced. 
We  can  not  punish  superstitious  people  by  the  mil- 
lion, even  though  the  working  of  their  superstitions 
is  very  harmful  to  the  public  good ;  but  we  can,  it 
may  be,  if  we  work  hard  and  rapidly  enough,  edu- 
cate them.  And  this  is  what  we  must  do.  For 
letting  in  the  light  through  education,  rather  than 
inactive  unbelief,  or  denunciation,  or  stern  sup- 
pression by  law,  is  the  only  sovereign  remedy. 

Lawlessness,  or  the  spirit  of  disregard  for  the 
law,  when  carried  out  so  as  to  become  a  wide- 
spreading  habit  of  breaking  the  law,  strikes  a  di- 


TBB  IfATlONAL  STABILITY  AND  PR0QRE88  295 

rect  and  forceful  blow  at  the  very  foundations  of 
national  stability.  But  education  tends  to  counter- 
act and  remedy  lawlessness  in  at  least  two  impor- 
tant ways.  It  tends  more  and  more  to  secure  laws 
which,  for  their  justice  and  successful  working, 
command  the  respect  and  cheerful  allegiance  of  the 
people.  This  it  does  by  making  the  law-makers 
wise  as  to  what  laws  have  a  character  to  entitle 
them  to  the  popular  respect  and  loyal  obedience, 
and  also  by  disposing  them,  in  spite  of  selfish  and 
partizan  interests  to  the  contrary,  to  enact  such 
laws.  It  is  one  of  the  saddest  and  most  threatening 
of  political  facts,  that  such  a  large  proportion  of 
the  laws  now  in  force,  and  so  much  of  the  enor- 
mous annual  increase  of  legislation,  does  not  com- 
mend itself  to  the  good  sense  and  moral  convic- 
tions of  the  great  body  of  the  people.  Indeed,  it 
is  a  serious  question  whether  some  of  the  principles 
which  we  have  come  to  regard  as  fundamental  and 
which  were  formerly  interpreted  so  as  to  conserve 
the  ends  of  justice  and  the  interests  of  the  public 
good,  are  not  now  so  interpreted  and  enforced  as  to 
thwart  those  ends  and  jeopardize  those  interests. 
Laws  procured  by  undue  forms  of  influence,  laws 
that  are  intended  to  work  in  favor  of  privileged  in- 
dividual corporations,  laws  that  are  well-inten- 
tioned, but  are  marred  or  spoiled  by  the  ignorance 
and  illiteracy  of  those  who  have  framed  them,  laws 
that  from  their  inception  are  in  favor  of  dishonesty 


296    TEE  TEACHER'^  PRACTICAL  PBIL080PHY 

and  injustice,  abound  on  all  our  statute  books. 
And  the  sinister  levity  with  which  the  public  has 
come  to  look  upon  this  sort  of  legislation  is  shown 
by  calling  these  measures  **  jokers"  and  by  stigma- 
tizing those  few  who  try  to  expose  them  as  ''muck- 
rakers."  Still  further,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  our  courts  of  law,  both  high  and  low,  whether 
in  large  measure  justly,  or  for  the  most  part  un- 
justly, are  believajmot  to  be  beyond  reproach  either 
for  the  legality  oikheir  decisions  or  for  the  rea- 
sonableness of  their  way  of  arriving  at  them.  And 
it  is  a  well-known  fact  that  in  certain  classes  of 
claims  it  is  difficult  or  impossible  for  the  poor  to 
get  their  case  fairly  tried,  not  to  say,  fairly  decided. 
It  is,  of  course,  evident  that  evils  inherent  in 
the  very  system  of  law-making,  or  in  its  results, 
can  not  easily  be  remedied  by  making  more  laws, 
by  the  same  persons  and  under  the  same  influences. 
But  we  must  look  to  educative  influences,  which 
are  strongly  ethical  in  their  character  and  which 
are  suffused  with  a  zeal  for  righteousness,  to  assist 
in  remedying  the  evils  that  are  leading  to  such  dis- 
respect for  the  law  of  the  land.  When  we  can  edu- 
cate the  people  so  that  they  will  demand  just  laws 
in  the  interests  of  the  public  good,  and  will  know 
just  laws  when  they  see  them,  and  will  no  longer 
think  it  wise  and  right  to  tolerate  private  bills  and 
class  legislation ;  then  and  not  until  then  will  this 
evil  of  lawlessness  be  greatly  mitigated,  if  it  does 


THE  NATIONAL  STABILITY  AND  PROGRESS  297 

not  wholly  cease.  For  the  people  simply  will  not 
enduringly  and  loyally  obey  laws  which  they  do  not 
believe  to  be  wise  and  just. 

But  education  tends  toward  the  cure  of  lawless- 
ness, because  it  directly  fosters  a  law-abiding  spirit 
in  the  breast  of  the  citizen ;  and  it  both  shows  him 
how  to  subordinate,  duly,  his  own  opinions  and 
practises  to  the  majesty  of  the  law,  and  also  in- 
duces him  to  sacrifice  freely  private  interests  to 
the  public  good.  There  are  not  a  few  cases  under 
every  system  of  government,  where  the  laws,  even 
when  they  express  fairly  well  the  average  sense 
of  justice,  do  not  correspond  with  the  moral  ideals 
of  the  morally  most  advanced  portion  of  the  nation. 
In  such  eases  it  is  often  necessary  for  the  more  in- 
telligent and  upright  few  to  submit  to  injustice 
rather  than  transgress  the  law.  Where  the  law 
seems  to  work  injustice  to  others  rather  than  to 
themselves,  it  is  harder  for  conscientious  men  to 
decide  what  to  do.  No  amount  of  education  can 
tell  to  the  citizen  just  precisely  how  in  all  cases  he 
should  solve  such  problems  as  these;  but  the  right 
kind  of  education  can  impart  the  spirit  of  obedi- 
ence to  the  laws,  and  also  some  of  the  practical 
judgment  necessary  to  right  conduct  in  the  effort 
to  obey  them.  Other  things  being  at  all  equal,  it 
is  the  educated  nation  which  is  wise  in  making, 
and  loyal  in  keeping,  the  law  of  the  land;  and 
which  is,  therefore,  at  once  stable  and  progressive. 


298    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Partizanship  is  another  evil,  which  when  it  be- 
comes aggressive  and  violent,  as  the  partizan  spirit 
tends  especially  to  become  in  all  democratic  forms 
of  government,  threatens  the  very  foundations  of 
the  stability  of  the  state.  Parties,  and  party  con- 
tests, are  inevitable  in  every  form  of  government. 
In  the  most  autocratic  or  bureaucratic  forms  of 
government  they  are  by  no  means  absent ;  but  they 
are  often  more  pernicious  and  dangerous,  because 
their  membership  and  plans  are  more  concealed, 
and  their  resort  is  more  exclusively  to  intrigue 
and  corruption.  In  all  constitutional  and  demo- 
cratic forms  of  government,  parties  are  the  legiti- 
mate, and  they  should  be  the  avowed  and  open 
means  of  forming  the  collective  opinion  of  the 
people  as  to  the  wisest  and  best  governmental  mea^ 
ures,  and  of  expressing  the  will  of  the  people  ac- 
cording to  the  opinions  they  have  formed.  Parties, 
then,  are  important  means  of  economi^and  politi- 
cal education.  Their  chief  value  consists  in  their 
being  educative  forces. 

But  partizanship  tends  to  defeat  the  most  im- 
portant and  serviceable  uses  of  political  parties. 
The  appeals  it  makes  are  not  in  the  interests  of 
educated  opinion;  neither  do  they  tend,  except  by 
way  of  wholesome  reaction,  to  the  weighing  of  facts 
or  the  forming  of  judgments  upon  a  basis  of  facts. 
Divisions  into  parties,  that  are  not  founded  in  in- 
telligent, honest  and  unselfish  difference  of  views 


THE  NATIONAL  STABILITY  AND  PB0QRE88  299 

on  questions  of  public  policy,  but  are  rather  man- 
aged for  the  securing  of  private  aims  and  the  lion^s 
share  of  the  spoil,  run  riot  in  the  spirit  of  partizan- 
ship,  as  a  matter  of  course.  And  when  this  spirit 
has  come  to  dominate  any  party,  no  matter  what 
its  name  or  how  good  may  have  been  the  political 
principles  on  which  it  was  founded,  it  becomes  a 
force  that  threatens  the  very  foundations  of  na- 
tional stability  and  progress. 

Education,  where  it  includes,  not  only  a  knowl- 
edge of  economical  and  political  principles,  but 
also  training  in  the  virtues  of  sympathy,  fraternal 
feeling,  moderation  and  self-control,  abates  or  re- 
moves the  partisan  spirit.  This  it  does  by  mak- 
ing each  understand  and  appreciate  the  views  and 
interests  of  the  other,  no  matter  how  much  they 
differ  from  his  own;  and  also  by  showing  to  each, 
what  measure  of  real  truth  belongs  to  the  party 
of  the  other,  to  the  party  to  which  he  does  not 
himself  belong. 

To  illustrate  by  the  case  where,  in  this  country 
at  the  present  time,  there  are  dominant  on  two 
opposed  sides  the  most  bitter  and  dangerous  stir- 
rings of  the  spirit  of  partizanship ;  I  refer  to  the 
spirit  which  dominates  so  much  of  the  so-called 
** labor  party'*  on  the  one  hand  and  on  the  other 
hand  controls  with  an  equal  lack  of  regard  for  con- 
sequences and  of  sympathy  that  portion  of  the  two 
great  national  parties  which  has  the  interests  of 


300    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

capital  in  charge.  Who  can  doubt  that  relief  from 
the  partizan  strife,  which  is  so  mischievous  to  the 
great  majority  of  the  people  who  are  not  partizans 
of  either  of  the  two,  will  come  when  capital  and 
labor  both  know  enough  and  are  moral  enough  to 
understand  and  to  appreciate  the  rights  and  inter- 
ests of  each  other? 

For  there  is  some  measure  of  truth  in  all  con- 
tentions which  can  for  any  length  of  time  hold 
together  a  collection  of  just  fairly  reasonable  and 
well-intentioned  human  beings.  We  have  as  a  na- 
tion suffered  much  from  this  selfish  and  ignoble 
spirit  of  partizanship,  the  successful  working  of 
which  in  any  political  or  ecclesiastical  party  implies 
that  it  is  much  too  largely  a  collection  of  hypocrites 
and  ignoramuses.  But  there  are  just  now  hopeful 
signs  of  great  improvement,  even  if — which  is 
scarcely  possible — the  hour  of  complete  deliverance 
is  not  at  hand.  Education  begets  a  spirit  of  intelli- 
gent and  sympathetic  compromise.  Such  com- 
promise will  not  sacrifice  truth  and  honest  convic- 
tions. But  it  assumes  the  higher  point  of  view, 
which  aims  to  include  the  considerations  that  will 
secure  the  greatest  good  for  the  greatest  number. 
It  is  generous  in  the  sacrifice  of  private  interests. 

That  selfish  avarice  and  ambition  have  developed 
to  a  threatening  extent  and  are  working  to  under- 
mine the  foundations  of  our  national  stability  and 
progress,  is  a  proposition  which  few  would  deny 


THE  NATIONAL  STABILITY  AND  PROGRESS  301 

who  have  carefully  watched  and  duly  estimated 
the  spirit  of  the  most  recent  times.  Here  seems 
to  be  something  with  which  the  enactment  and  en- 
forcement of  laws  can  cope  more  successfully  than 
with  so  intangible  evils  as  the  spirit  of  lawlessness 
or  the  spirit  of  partizanship.  I  need  not  describe 
this  evil  to  you  with  any  detail.  You  know  how 
powerful  and  pervasive  it  is  through  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  Commonwealth.  But  the  fur- 
ther evil  that  it  bodes  is  not  at  all  popularly  recog- 
nized or  duly  estimated.  I  remember  perfectly 
well  when,  for  a  man  to  be  rich  for  those  days,  was 
of  itself  a  sort  of  title  to  the  respect  and  confidence 
of  his  fellow-citizens.  Now,  there  are  millions  of 
our  populace  who  hate  the  rich  and  politically 
powerful,  and  even  the  so-called  ''respectable''; 
just  because  they  are  rich,  powerful  and  respect- 
able; and  who  are  cherishing  the  sullen  or  bitter 
feeling  that  Church  and  State  are  in  league  against 
them  to  keep  them  down.  This  feeling  can  not 
be  cured  by  law.  But  it  may  be  mitigated  and  con- 
trolled, and  even  extirpated,  by  an  education  which 
does  away  with  its  sources  in  a  too  rank  and  riot- 
ous exhibition  of  selfish  avarice  and  ambition. 

Irreverence  is  another  of  those  evils  which  de- 
mand the  therapeutics  of  education.  History 
shows  us  plainly  that  an  irreligious  and  frivolous 
spirit  among  the  citizens  at  large  endangers  the 
very  life  of  the  State.    It  shows  us  that  the  remedy 


302    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

for  the  evils  of  superstition  is  not  irreligion,  but 
it  is  quite  the  opposite.  It  is,  the  rather,  a  spirit 
of  reasonable  reverence — a  certain  feeling  of  awe 
and  mystery,  a  submission  of  will,  a  view  of  life 
and  of  duty  and  of  destiny,  which  is  the  opposite 
of  that  from  which  irreverence  springs.  It  is  the 
work  of  education  to  foster  such  an  enlightened 
and  reasonable  spirit  of  reverence,  and  to  substi- 
tute it  for  the  superstitiousness  with  which  the 
ignorant  so  often  confound  it. 

It  requires  no  particular  detailed  application  of 
the  truths  we  have  just  been  examining  to  dis- 
cover how  important  is  the  work  of  the  teachers  of 
any  nation  in  counteracting  these  disturbing  forces, 
and  so  in  contributing  positively  to  the  establish- 
ment on  firm  foundations  of  the  edifice  of  the 
State.  For  it  is  the  effort  of  education  to  substi- 
tute, for  superstition,  enlightenment;  for  lawless- 
ness, which  is  so  often  chiefly  caused  by  the  enact- 
ment, under  sinister  influences,  of  unwise  and  un- 
just laws,  a  pervasive  respect  for  and  spirit  of 
obedience  to  the  law;  for  the  partizan  views  and 
spirit,  broad  views  and  a  spirit  of  union  and  of 
sympathy  between  the  different  classes ;  for  selfish- 
ness and  intriguing  ambition,  patriotism  and  a 
supreme  regard  for  the  public  welfare;  and  for 
the  degrading  spirit  of  frivolity,  the  uplifting  sen- 
timent of  reverence. 

I  began  the  consideration  of  this  subject  by  say- 


THE  NATIONAL  STABILITY  AND  PROGRESS  303 

ing  that  stability  in  the  affairs  of  government  must 
not  be  confounded  with  stagnation,  or  even  with 
that  excess  of  so-called  ** conservatism,'*  which  op- 
poses progress  on  the  sole  ground  that  progress 
involves,  at  times,  seemingly  rapid  and  radical 
changes.  But  that  progress  which  is  compatible 
with  stability  and  is  indeed  the  condition  of  the 
truest  stability,  is  movement  at  the  right  time, 
right  place  and  in  the  right  direction.  Such  prog- 
ress can  be  secured  only  as  a  result  of  the  educar 
tion  of  the  body  of  the  people. 

The  different  ways  in  which  education  operates 
to  secure  the  economic,  social  and  moral  advance  of 
the  national  life  have  been  mentioned  and  suffi- 
ciently illustrated.  I  wish  now,  therefore,  to  add 
a  few  suggestions  on  one  point  only.  The  educa- 
tion which  is  to  serve  the  cause  of  national  prog- 
ress must  be  itself  progressive.  The  various  means 
employed  and  institutions  founded,  whether  under 
the  control  of  the  State  or  provided  by  private  en- 
terprise, must  be  ever  striving  to  improve  them- 
selves if  they  are  to  furnish  educative  opportuni- 
ties to  a  progressive  people.  The  system  of  educa- 
tion must  be  both  prompt  and  wise  to  adapt  itself 
to  the  exigencies  of  the  times,  to  the  changing  needs 
of  the  people,  not  only  in  their  more  strictly  eco- 
nomic and  social,  but  also  in  their  political  rela- 
tions. It  must  be  progressive  in  training  citizens 
for  the  progress  of  the  State. 


304    THE  TEACHER' 8  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

The  rapid  and  extreme  alterations  in  the  equip- 
ment, curricula,  personnel,  aims  and  achievements 
of  the  higher  institutions  of  learning  and  to  a  les- 
ser extent  of  the  secondary  and  primary  schools 
of  the  country,  have  borne  witness  to  a  keen  and 
widespreading  feeling  of  appreciation  of  the  ne- 
cessity which  devolves  upon  the  nation  at  large. 
Strenuous  and  almost  frantic  efforts  have  been 
made  to  demonstrate  a  priori  what  these  changes 
ought  to  be;  and  millions  of  money  have  been 
spent  and  hundreds  of  lives  sacrificed  in  attempts 
at  the  experimental  testing  of  at  least  a  moiety  of 
these  theories.  There  was  thirty  years  ago  and 
there  is  still  almost  universal  agreement  as  to  the 
need  of  extensive  changes  in  the  system  of  educa- 
tion prevailing  at  that  earlier  time.  But  there  was 
not  then,  and  there  is  not  now,  anything  approach- 
ing universal  agreement  as  to  precisely  how  this 
need  for  change  in  the  direction  of  progress  should 
best  be  met.  There  is  not  even  agreement  as  to 
whether,  in  some  of  the  most  important  measures 
demanded  in  the  interest  of  progress,  it  has  been 
met.  And  there  are  some  very  pertinent  signs  of 
a  tendency  to  return  upon  the  course  and  to  seek 
for  real  progress,  not  exactly  along  all  the  old  lines, 
but  more  nearly  along  some  of  the  old  lines. 

I  do  not  feel  competent,  and  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  one  else  is  or  can  be  competent,  to  pro- 
nounce beforehand  upon  just  what   changes  are 


THE  NATIONAL  STABILITY  AND  PROaRE&S  305 

necessary  to  make  real  progress  in  our  national  sys- 
tem of  education,  so  far  as  we  can  be  said  to  have 
any  system  of  a  national  character  at  all.  Some  of 
the  changes  already  initiated  or  partly  perfected 
are  pretty  plainly  along  lines  of  real  progress; 
others,  just  as  plainly,  are  not;  more  than  either 
the  undoubted  successes  or  the  plain  failures,  are 
the  cases  still  in  doubt.  The  truth,  however,  which 
I  wish  now  to  emphasize  is  this:  The  measures 
suitable  or  necessary  to  secure  real  progress  in  edu- 
cation can  not  be  determined  by  educationalists 
with  pet  theories  of  pedagogy,  nor  even  be  evolved 
as  lessons  from  a  study  of  the  history  of  educa- 
tion— although  the  latter  method  is,  of  the  two, 
far  safer  and  more  promising  of  helpful  results. 
There  are,  indeed,  certain  principles  which  control 
the  success  or  failure  of  all  attempts  at  education. 
These  are  of  the  psychological  and  ethical  order. 
And  these  principles  can  never  be  too  thoroughly 
studied,  or  too  firmly  grasped  and  held,  or  too 
wisely  and  tactfully  applied.  There  are  also  cer- 
tain lessons  from  history  in  the  matter  of  the 
progress  of  the  race  and  of  the  different  more  en- 
lightened nations,  to  adopt  and  to  adapt  which  is 
the  most  serviceable  and  effective  means  for  se- 
curing the  welfare  of  the  State,  thru  the  education 
of  at  least  a  part  of  her  citizens.  But  there  are  no 
examples  of  a  great  and  rapidly  growing  Republic 
like  our  own  trying  to  change  its  measures  and  de- 
velop its  equipment  so  as  to  meet  the  demands  of 


306    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

popular  education,  under  economic  and  social  and 
political  changes  so  inconceivably  rapid  and  enor- 
mously great  as  are  the  changes  going  on  in  this 
country  at  the  present  time.  And  even  if  our  his- 
tory at  the  present  time  were  much  more  nearly 
than  it  can  be  held  to  be,  a  sort  of  repetition  of 
the  educational  experience  of  some  other  nation  in 
the  past,  I  very  much  doubt  whether  a  study  of 
these  resemblances  would  yield  the  organized  and 
detailed  solution  of  our  present-day  problems,  or 
even  any  considerable  approach  to  such  a  solution. 
Progress  in  educational  methods  can  be  attained 
only  by  a  large  and  continuous  use  of  the  method 
of  experimentation.  It  is  chiefly  by  trial  that  the 
testing  of  the  merit  of  educational  systems  is  ulti- 
mately obtained.  And  when  I  use  the  word  **  ulti- 
mately, '  *  I  do  not  mean  that  any  one  trial  or  series 
of  trials  can  try  out  any  system  or  any  methods,  so 
that  in  all  the  future  no  changes  will  need  to  be  made 
in  it,  in  the  interests  of  further  progress.  For  cease- 
less development  is  the  law  of  progress  in  educa- 
tion, as  it  is  in  nature  and  in  all  great  human  af- 
fairs. On  the  other  hand,  nothing  is  more  sure  to 
check  or  to  mislead  all  efforts  at  a  real  advance 
than  the  spirit  of  unthinking  restlessness  and  dis- 
satisfaction, with  its  clamor  for  change.  Change  of 
text-books,  change  of  teachers,  change  of  methods, 
even  change  of  school-rooms  and  lecture  halls,  are 
all  inevitably  accompanied  by  a  certain  amount  of 
disturbance  and  of  loss.    Change  of  every  sort  re- 


THE  NATIONAL  STABILITY  AND  PROGRESS  307 

quires  a  certain  expenditure  of  energy,  over  and 
above  that  which  results  in  work,  just  to  make  the 
change.  And  this  fact  should  always  be  counted 
upon  in  reckoning  the  net  sum  to  be  gained  by  the 
effort  to  effect  any  particular  change. 

The  general  conclusion  from  this  apparent  side- 
excursion  leads  us  back  to  the  thought  which  I 
have  aimed  to  make  prominent  in  this  entire  course 
of  lectures.  It  is  the  personal  character  and  equip- 
ment of  the  class  of  teachers  employed  by  any 
system,  to  which  so  much  must  be  referred,  when 
we  are  trying  to  discover  what  is  real  progress, 
and  what  not;  what  is  the  best  system  and  what 
are  the  best  methods  to  be  adopted  and  encouraged 
for  promoting  thru  education  the  stability  and 
progress  of  the  State.  Every  teacher  who  con- 
tributes anything  to  the  progress  of  education 
makes  in  that  way  a  valuable  contribution  to  the 
national  progress.  But  more  especially,  every 
teacher  who  becomes  a  discoverer  or  an  expert  au- 
thority in  any  branch  of  human  science,  art,  litera- 
ture or  reflective  thinking,  becomes  an  especially 
valuable  factor  in  the  progressive  national  life. 

And  finally,  no  substitute  for  education  is  pos- 
sible as  the  safeguard  of  national  stability  and  na- 
tional progress.  Enlargement  of  the  imperial  do- 
main is  no  such  substitute.  A  certain  fixed  terri- 
tory over  which  the  State  has  control  is  necessary 
for  its  very  existence.  Enlargement  of  this  terri- 
tory may  become  desirable  or  even  necessary  for 


308    THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

national  progress.  But  mere  geographical  great- 
ness can  never  make  a  stable  and  progressive  State. 
On  the  contrary,  unless  the  people  are  enlightened, 
the  bigger  the  territory  the  bigger  the  risk.  Little 
Holland  and  little  Switzerland  are  more  stable  and 
more  progressive  than  great  Russia  or  great  China. 

Increase  of  wealth  can  not  take  the  place  of  edu- 
cation in  securing  the  stability  and  progress  of 
the  State.  Today,  more  than  ever  before,  perhaps, 
progress  undoubtedly  lies  along  lines  of  economic 
expansion  and  the  accumulation  of  wealth.  And 
there  are  many  who  would,  I  think  mistakenly,  con- 
tend that  even  national  stability  depends  upon  the 
financial  ability  to  build  many  expensive  battle- 
ships and  to  finance  expensive  wars.  But  the  ac- 
cumulation of  wealth  in  comparatively  few  hands, 
by  fraud,  injustice,  or  selfish  grasping,  is  now  the 
chief  menace  to  internal  peace  and  to  peace  be- 
tween nations,  and  so  to  the  stability  and  progress 
of  all  nations. 

Even  wise  government,  where  it  is  possible  with- 
out the  education  of  the  whole  people  is  not  suffi- 
cient to  insure  the  stability  and  progress  of  any 
State,  no  matter  how  skilfully  and  elaborately  its 
structure  may  seem  to  be  compacted.  In  order 
that  the  nation  may  go  forward  without  internal, 
destructive  revolt,  and  without  imported  disaster, 
the  people  must  be  enlightened  and  disciplined  by 
the  intellectual  and  moral  forces  wielded  by  the 
national  system  of  education. 


LECTURE  XV 

THE    TEACHER'S    PRACTICAL    PHILOSOPHY: 
SUMMARY    AND    CONCLUSION 

I  have  little  doubt  that  in  this  course  of  lectures 
I  have  sometimes  seemed  to  you  to  wander  far 
afield,  and  to  be  considering  subjects  which  are 
only  rather  remotely  connected  with  the  daily  work 
and  pressing  practical  tasks  of  the  teacher's  life. 
Perhaps,  however,  on  reflection  over  what  has  been 
said  on  these  subjects  you  may  discover  more 
numerous  and  vital  points  of  connection  with  these 
tasks  and  their  problems  than  was  at  first  apparent. 
However  this  may  be,  I  am  now  proposing  to  return 
to  the  thought  which  gave  us  our  original  place  of 
departure,  and  to  some  of  its  more  immediate  and 
obvious  applications.  And  this  I  wish  to  do  in 
such  manner  as  to  reveal  more  clearly  and  to  em- 
phasize more  strongly  the  Importance  and  the  Dig- 
nity of  the  teacher's  work.  For  I  regard  it  as  one 
of  the  chief  perils  of  our  national  education  that  so 
many  influences  are  at  work  which  tend,  either 
directly  or  indirectly,  to  diminish  the  self-respect 
and  the  respect  of  the  community  for  the  individ- 
ual teacher;  and  so  to  lower  the  ideals,  diminish 
the  spiritual  influence  and  degrade  the  public  esti- 
mate, of  the  profession  of  the  teacher. 

800 


310  THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL   PHILOSOPHY 

In  my  effort  to  clarify  and  enforce  the  considera- 
tions which  support  a  high  estimate  of  the  dignity 
and  importance  of  the  teacher  ^s  work,  let  me  pass 
briefly  in  review  thoughts  which  have  been  ex- 
pressed at  length  in  each  of  the  four  divisions  under 
which  I  have  treated  the  general  theme.  This  will 
lead  me  to  say,  first,  that  the  importance  and  dig- 
nity of  the  teacher's  work  are  emphasized  by  the 
very  nature  of  that  work.  The  function  of  the 
teacher  secures  him  at  once  an  important  and  dig- 
nified place  in  the  community.  This  is  true  because 
this  very  function  is,  essentially  regarded,  one  of 
the  highest,  and  most  efficient  forms  of  personal 
intercourse.  It  is  more  comprehensive  than  ordi- 
nary domestic  or  friendly  intercourse;  it  is  more 
close-fitting  and  intimate  than  political  and  business 
intercourse ;  it  is  more  apt  to  be  free  from  certain 
embarrassments  than  is  the  former,  while  being 
more  permanent  and  effective  in  its  relation  to 
individuals  than  is  the  latter. 

But  the  importance  and  dignity  of  the  teacher's 
function  are  further  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  it 
lies  so  near  to  all  the  springs  of  human  action,  as 
these  springs  are  related  to  the  life  and  growth  of 
both  the  individual  and  the  community.  As  stim- 
ulating interest  in  subjects  that  have  worth  for 
human  attainment,  and  as  imparting  knowledge 
upon  these  subjects ;  as  training  the  human  facul- 
ties for  their  most  fit   and  efficient  action,   and 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUaiON  311 

especially  as  forming  the  character  of  those  whom 
this  function  reaches,  the  work  of  the  teacher  ia 
one  of  the  most  important  and  dignified— if  it 
is  not  the  most  important  and  dignified— of  all 
human  activities. 

The  importance  and  dignity  of  the  teacher's  office 
is  further  manifest  in  the  nature  of  the  equip- 
ment demanded  for  the  work  of  teaching.  To  have 
it  one's  duty,  one's  express  form  of  life  and  activ- 
ity in  life,  one's  daily  employment,  to  cultivate 
a  character,  safe  to  be  copied  and  worthy  of  imi- 
tation by  the  young,  and  to  acquire  knowledge,  not 
only  in  order  to  possess  it  oneself,  but  also  to  impart 
it  freely  to  others— this  is  a  manner  of  life  which 
princes  and  angels  might  covet. 

The  proper  ideals  of  the  teacher  are  also  such  as 
to  impart  the  highest  significance  and  dignity  to 
his  professional  work.  It  is  largely  by  the  worth 
and  dynamic  quality  of  their  ideals  that  the  value 
of  the  life-work  of  different  men  is  most  fairly  to 
be  judged.  But  the  expressly  defined  ideals  of  the 
teacher  are  not  to  gain  wealth  and  power  for  him- 
self ;  they  are,  the  rather,  to  promote  the  welfare  of 
those  committed  to  his  influence,  to  advance  and 
disseminate  knowledge,  and  to  strengthen,  elevate 
and  purify  society.  No  ideals  that  give  more  of 
importance  and  dignity  to  one's  life-work  can  be 
partially  realized,  or  even  imagined,  imder  the 
existing  conditions  of  human  society,  than  those 


312     TBE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

expressly  adopted  by  the  intelligent  and  conscien- 
tious professional  teacher. 

And  when  we  come  to  consider  the  historical  and 
the  actual  relations  in  which  the  educational  sys- 
tem of  any  people  stands  to  its  social  welfare  and 
social  development,  and  to  the  stability  and  pro- 
gress of  the  same  people  as  organized,  for  purposes 
of  self-government,  into  a  State,  the  argument  to 
establish  the  supreme  importance  of  the  teacher's 
work  of  instruction  and  discipline,  becomes  com- 
plete. This  sort  of  work  is  the  distinctive  work 
of  the  class  of  professional  teachers.  The  work  of 
*' education, "  in  the  more  comprehensive  meaning 
of  the  word,  is  secondary,  incidental,  subsidiary, 
with  most  other  employments  and  professions ;  with 
the  professional  teacher,  it  is  primary,  permanent, 
and  essential. 

I  have  already  made  a  sort  of  indirect  reference 
to  the  witness  which  might  be  invoked  from  history 
as  to  the  importance  and  dignity  of  the  teacher's 
work.  Every  age  is  apt  to  select  for  its  attention 
and  attribution  of  greatness,  that  particular  form 
of  activity  of  which  it  feels  most  imperative  need. 
Is  it  a  stage  of  civilization— or,  rather,  a  stage  of 
barbarism — where  war  is  the  regular  and  chief 
employment  of  the  tribe  or  the  nation?  Then  the 
warrior  chief,  or  the  successful  general,  is  the 
great  man,  the  hero,  the  one  deemed  most  worthy 
of  esteem  and  acclaim  for  his  superior  worth.    And 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  313 

when,  in  the  national  development,  the  time  comes 
for  defense  by  arms  of  the  national  life,  such  work 
of  military  skill  and  prowess  is  justly  held  in  the 
greatest  honor. 

"When  political  organization  or  control  is  the 
chief  interest— real  or  fancied— of  the  people,  then 
the  work  of  the  lawmaker  or  the  statesman  seems 
most  important  and  dignified.  When  material 
resources  are  the  standard  for  estimating— or 
greatly  distorting  the  truth  of  the  estimate — of 
men,  as  they  certainly  are  in  this  so-called  **  com- 
mercial age ' ' ;  then  the  successful  merchant,  banker, 
manufacturer,  or  manipulator  of  stocks,  is  sure  to 
acquire  a  quite  exaggerated  importance  and  dig- 
nity. How  significant  from  this  point  .of  view,  and 
how  suggestive  of  false  standards  for  estimating 
values,  are  such  designations  as  these:  ** merchant 
princes,'*  *' lumber  kings,''  **coal  barons,"  and 
*' lordly  bankers!" 

But  all  the  while,  in  the  various  lands  where 
civilization  has  developed,  or  the  springs  of  a 
higher  race-culture  are  to  be  found,  the  fact  of  his- 
tory remains  the  same:  Among  all  nations,  it  has 
teen  the  teacher  who,  of  all  classes  of  the  people, 
has  exercised  the  most  important  and  lasting  in- 
fluence for  good  upon  the  development  of  the  race. 
In  one  word,  the  world  owes  more  to  its  great 
teachers  than  to  any  other  class  of  men. 

Indeed,   fellow  teachers,   when   I   consider  the 


314    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

exaggerated  importance,  which  is  arrogated  to 
themselves,  and  which  is  so  generally  accorded  to 
our  successful  politicians  and  business  men,  with- 
out inquiring  at  all  carefully  into  the  means  by 
which  success  has  been  attained,  as  judged  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  moral  law  or  of  its  rela- 
tions to  the  public  welfare,  I  am  forced  to  regard 
it  as  a  signal  indication  of  our  vulgarity  and  of 
the  lowness  in  the  stage  of  the  civilization  to  which 
we,  as  a  people,  have  as  yet  attained.  After  all, 
however,  it  is  the  silent,  everflowing  and  every- 
where permeating  influences  that  continue  to  come 
from  the  forces  of  instruction  and  discipline  which 
a  few  great  individuals,  by  the  way  of  personal 
example  and  of  doctrine,  have  exercised,  that  have 
done  most  to  elevate  and  bless  the  race.  Were  it  not 
for  the  conserving  influence  of  these  few  great 
teachers,  no  one  can  tell  how  much  of  destruction 
the  forces  of  selfish  avarice  and  ambition  might 
have  wrought,  above  all  that  which  they  confessedly 
have  done  to  corrupt  and  to  destroy.  These  con- 
servers  of  humanity  *s  highest  interests  have  all 
been  men  who  reflected  upon  the  significance  of 
life,  and  upon  duty  and  upon  destiny,  from  the 
higher  points  of  view  and  as  seen  in  the  light  of 
immortal  ideals.  They  believed  in  the  supremacy  of 
morality,  in  the  trustworthiness  of  reason,  in  the 
reality  of  the  invisible  and  spiritual,  in  the  duty 
and  the  beauty  of  unselfish  devotion,  and  in  the 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  315 

final  triumph  of  the  Good;  witness:  Confucius, 
Mencius,  Sakya-Muni,  Moses,  Socrates,  Plato,  Paul, 
and  Jesus,  as  chief  among  many  others. 

The  very  laws  which  control  the  historical  devel- 
opment of  the  race  are  such  as  to  enhance  the 
importance  and  dignity  of  the  teacher's  work.  If 
the  teacher's  day  always  has  been,  and  is  now,  a 
working  day,  full  of  important  and  dignified  work 
for  humanity's  sake;  it  is  yet  more  true  that  the 
teacher's  greater  day  is  in  the  future.  We  can 
not  tell  alas !  how  much  longer  war  will  sometimes 
be  necessary  on  the  part  of  those  nations  which  do 
not  seek  it,  but  are  forced  into  it  by  the  aggression 
of  other  nations,  and  in  their  own  just  self-defense. 
But  it  must  become  far  less  frequent  in  the  future, 
or  real  civilization  can  not  advance.  We  can  not 
tell  what  will  be  the  limit  to  the  growth  of  wealth 
in  comparatively  few  hands,  or  what  wild  schemes 
of  a  nihilistic  or  a  socialistic  redistribution  of  the 
good  things  of  life  may  temporarily  prevail.  But 
we  know  that  there  must  be  some  limit;  and  there 
are  some  indications  that  the  limit  can  not  be  so 
very  far  away.  There  is  no  limit  to  be  set,  how- 
ever, to  the  possible  mental  and  moral  improve- 
ment of  society,  under  the  influences  from  an 
improved  instruction  and  discipline  of  the  people 
at  large.  Instruction  and  discipline  are  the  work 
of  the  teachers  of  the  people,  especially  of  the  public 
schools.     Therefore  the  call  for  the  uplifting  of 


316     THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

their  influence  and  the  improvement  of  their  work 
is  an  unceasing  and  ever  louder  call. 

All  these  considerations  are  much  intensified  and 
reinforced  by  the  condition  of  the  public  education 
in  this  country  at  the  present  time.  It  is  beyond 
dispute  that  this  condition  is  laboring  under  many 
deficiencies  which  need  to  be  supplied,  and  not  a 
few  serious  evils  which  require  to  be  remedied.  I 
do  not  propose  to  discuss  or  even  to  mention  these 
with  any  fulness  of  detail;  for  besides  the  fact 
that  this  last  lecture  would  afford  neither  the  proper 
place  nor  the  adequate  space  for  such  an  attempt, 
there  is  the  other  fact  of  my  desire  to  end  the 
whole  course  of  lectures  with  words  of  encourage- 
ment and  good-cheer  rather  than  with  words  of 
faultfinding  and  discouragement.  And  in  truth, 
the  deficiencies  and  evils  of  the  present  system  of 
education  do  reasonably  serve  to  enhance  our  esti- 
mate of  the  importance,  and  even  of  the  dignity  of 
the  work  for  the  professional  teacher.  Just  as  the 
class  who  make  and  enforce  the  laws  must  be  chiefly 
looked  to  for  an  improved  condition  of  legislation, 
and  of  obedience  to  law,  on  the  part  of  the  country 
at  large ;  and  just  as  the  removal  of  the  many  dis- 
honest and  mean  practises  rife  in  the  business  of 
the  country  must  be  expected  and  demanded 
chiefly  from  the  men  and  women  who  are  them- 
selves engaged  in  this  business;  so  the  supply  of 
educational  deficiencies  and  the  remedy  of  the  edu- 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  317 

cational  evils  of  the  country  must  be  mainly  sought 
and  required  of  the  men  and  women  who  are  the 
professional  ''educators"  of  the  country.  No  one 
else  can  accomplish  much  improvement,  if  the 
teachers  of  the  nation  do  not  take  an  eager  interest 
and  lend  a  helping  hand.  Indeed,  when  this  class 
are  themselves  improved  in  wisdom,  efficiency,  and 
character,  then  the  improvement  of  the  system  of 
education  is  not  only  ensured  in  the  near  future, 
but  it  is  even  already  in  large  measure  accom- 
plished. To  get  better  and  still  better  teachers  is 
the  main  part  of  the  problem  of  our  national  sys- 
tem of  education. 

It  will  help  our  argument,  however,  to  spend  a 
few  minutes  with  each  one  of  several  particulars. 
The  one  principal  cause  and  most  marked  result 
of  the  deficiencies  and  evils  to  which  reference  has 
been  made,  is  the  uncertain  and  disordered  condi- 
tion of  the  system  itself.  Some  such  complete 
upsetting  of  the  old  curricula,  the  old  methods,  the 
old  ideas  and  ideals,  was  made  inevitable  by  the 
events  of  the  last  half -century.  During  these  fifty 
years  there  has  been  a  rapid  introduction  and  devel- 
opment of  almost  wholly  new  subjects,  about  which 
it  is  thought  necessary  that  the  average  citizen 
should  know  something ;  and  should  have  a  chance, 
if  he  will  improve  it,  to  know  much  more.  During 
the  same  time  there  has  been  going  on  an  almost 
equally  complete  change  in  the  estimates  of  the 


318    TEE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PBIL080PHT 

value  of  the  different  subjects  which  should  enter 
into  the  most  approved  system,  both  elementary  and 
higher,  of  the  public  system  of  education.  All 
this  has  resulted  in  a  friendly  but  eager  rivalry, 
or  an  unsympathetic  and  bitter  contention,  between 
different  studies  and  between  the  advocates  and 
teachers  of  different  studies;  and  this,  in  its  turn, 
has  added  still  further  to  the  disintegration,  dis- 
order and  confusion  of  the  entire  system.  Indeed, 
it  is  doubtful  whether,  at  present,  it  can  be  called 
a  system  at  all. 

Meantime,  the  population  of  the  country  has 
been  growing  rapidly;  and  many  millions  of  this 
growth  have  consisted  of  uneducated  and  even 
grossly  ignorant  foreigners  from  Southern  and  Cen- 
tral Eastern  Europe.  To  assimilate  and  improve 
these  educationally,  has  severely  taxed  the  resources 
of  every  kind— especially  the  resources  of  men  and 
women  out  of  which  to  provide  the  teachers  for 
these  needy  multitudes.  The  largely  increased  cost 
of  everything  necessary  to  furnishing  an  adequate 
equipment  for  the  public  education,  and  the  rea- 
sonable necessity  for  considerable  increases  in  the 
salaries  of  the  teachers,  as  well  as  the  not  so  rea- 
sonable disinclination  of  those  best  fitted,  to  enter 
the  profession  of  teaching  because  its  social  and 
financial  rewards  are  not  equally  attractive  with 
those  of  business  or  of  the  other  professions — all 
these,  and  other  causes,  have  rendered  it  increas- 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  319 

ingly  difficult  to  make  the  supply  of  the  material 
for  an  efficient  system  of  education  keep  pace  with 
the  demand  from  the  rapid  growth  of  an  unedu- 
cated population.  Besides,  in  the  older  parts  of 
the  country  the  movements  of  the  population  into 
the  cities  and  into  the  newer  parts  of  the  land, 
have  left  these  parts  with  enfeebled  and  deterio- 
rated district  schools  as  well  as  village  churches. 
As  a  result,  neither  churches  nor  schools  are,  in 
many  places,  serving  their  day  and  generation  so 
well  as  they  were  twenty-five  and  fifty  years  ago. 
To  meet  effectively  the  needs  of  a  good  modern 
education,  and  to  bring  order  again  out  of  this 
confusion,  many  of  the  best  men  and  women  in 
the  teaching  profession  have  been  thinking  hard 
and  working  with  all  their  might.  Since  the  first 
real  signs  for  hope  and  encouragement  must  come 
in  this  way,  the  fact  that  the  evils  and  deficiencies 
are  being  now  so  generally  recognized,  and  that  the 
way  to  take  them  in  hand  is  being  so  eagerly 
debated,  is  a  highly  welcome  fact.  I  shall  take  no 
part  in  the  criminations  and  recriminations  which 
are  going  on  between  the  high-schools  and  the  col- 
leges, or  between  the  advocates  of  a  public  system 
which  lays  most  emphasis  on  manual  training  and 
those  who  stand  for  the  spread  amongst  the  whole 
people  of  the  benefits  of  a  liberal  culture.  There 
are  some  evils  about  which  we  may  all  be  agreed. 
And  these  are  the  worst  and  most  widely  prevalent. 


320     THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

There  are  some  improvements  in  conditions, 
methods,  and  results,  to  which  we  may  all  make  at 
least  some  slight  contribution;  and  about  the  way 
to  secure  which,  it  would  seem  that  we  might  come 
to  some  sort  of  agreement,  within  a  reasonable  time, 
if  not  at  once. 

Chief  among  such  evils,  in  my  judgment,  is  the 
intolerable  amount  of  cramming,  and  the  insane 
demand  for  marks,  and  confidence  in  marks,  which 
has  almost  everywhere  seized  upon  and  dominated 
our  system  of  education.  To  remedy  this  evil  its 
causes  must  be  removed.  And  so  far  as  I  am  able 
to  discover,  these  causes  are  chiefly  the  following 
three :  The  inordinate  number  of  subjects,  or  rather 
of  studies,  which  are  crowded  into  the  required 
work  of  all  the  stages  of  education — primary, 
secondary  and  higher ;  second,  the  lack  of  adequate 
means  for  separating  between  those  who  are  ca- 
pable of  doing  well  the  required  amount  of  work 
within  the  allotted  time  and  those  who  are  not 
capable;  and,  third,  the  fact  that,  in  continuing 
any  particular  study,  or  line  of  studies,  the  pupil 
is  passed  from  teacher  to  teacher,  differing  in  their 
personal  characteristics,  their  requirements,  their 
methods,  their  favorite  text-books  and  pet  theories. 
!What  wonder  that  in  the  pupil's  mind,  with  this 
confusion  of  ways  of  getting  at  truths  of  fact  and 
truths  of  opinion,  there  results  a  state  of  confusion 
worse  confounded? 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  321 

Almost  inseparably  and,  I  fear  in  its  practical 
working,  quite  inevitably,  there  are  connected  with 
this  evil  of  cramming,  some  forms  of  exceedingly 
grave  moral  evil.  If  shallowness  and  pretense  of 
knowledge,  where  real  knowledge  does  not  exist,  is 
a  moral  evil — and  I  believe  that  it  is — then  it  can 
not  be  denied  that  much  of  this  sort  of  immorality 
on  the  part  of  both  teachers  and  pupils  results 
from  the  demand  for  a  multitude  of  studies  with- 
out thoroness  in  a  few.  iWorse  still,  there  is  the 
almost  irresistible  temptation — at  least  on  the 
pupil  *s  part — to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  daily 
recitation  or  of  the  examination  paper,  by  resort 
to  some  kind  of  unfair  or  dishonest  means  of  help. 

It  can  not  be  said,  however,  that  these  evils  are 
due  wholly  to  the  disturbed  condition  of  our  sys- 
tem of  education,  much  less  that  they  are  chiefly 
the  fault  of  those  who  have  this  system  committed 
to  their  charge.  They  are,  the  rather,  the  ex- 
pression in  matters  of  education,  of  the  same  na- 
tional evils  that  have  invaded  and  so  largely  influ- 
enced, if  they  have  not  actually  captured  and  domi- 
nated our  system  of  politics,  our  system  of  business, 
and  even  to  some  extent  the  management  of  our 
institutions  of  religion.  What  wonder  that  the 
children  will  lie  about  their  studies  when  their 
parents  are  so  little  regardful  of  the  truth  in  their 
political  affiliations  or  their  social  relations  ?  What 
wonder  that  the  children  will  cheat,  if  they  get  the 


322     THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

chance,  when  they  know  that  their  elders  are  so 
extensively  given  to  cheating  or  being  cheated  with 
false  weights  and  measures  in  the  markets  and 
shops  of  the  city  and  the  village,  or  from  the  carts 
of  the  peddlers  and  the  wagons  of  the  farmers? 
What  wonder  that  the  boys  and  girls  of  the  public 
schools,  and  the  young  ladies  and  gentlemen  in  our 
colleges  and  universities,  are  so  little  regardful  of 
the  laws  of  the  institutions  of  which  they  are  mem- 
bers when  disregard  and  even  open  contempt  for 
the  laws  of  the  land  is  so  rife  with  the  people  of  the 
land  ?  And  why  should  not  the  sons  and  daughters 
of  so  many  of  the  wealthy  be  interested  in  athletics 
or  in  dancing  rather  than  in  their  studies,  if  so 
many  of  their  mothers  are  so  passionately  in- 
terested in  bridge  whist  or  in  automobiling,  and 
their  fathers  in  gambling  in  stocks  and  grain,  or 
in  the  meetings  of  their  clubs  rather  than  the  moral 
and  intellectual  discipline  of  their  own  children, 
not  to  speak  of  the  nation  at  large. 

But  I  come  back  from  these  unwelcome,  tho 
urgent,  topics  for  our  reflective  thought  to  the 
theme  of  the  importance  and  the  dignity  of  the 
work  of  the  professional  teacher.  For,  when 
rightly  considered,  the  deficiencies  and  evils  fur- 
nish our  more  emphatic  call  to  the  doing  of  duty, 
and  our  more  promising  opportunity  for  an  influ- 
ence, in  kind  and  breadth,  worthy  of  our  highest 
endeavor.    For,  however  dark  the  hour  is,  it  is  our 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  323 

hour  of  call  to  duty  and  of  promise  of  opportunity. 
But,  in  reality,  the  hour  is  by  no  means  wholly 
dark;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  distinctly  the  hour  of 
a  dawn  that  gives  promise  of  growing  into  the 
full  light  of  a  fine  day.  All  periods  of  rapid 
change  and  great  transition  are,  of  necessity, 
periods  of  seeming  disintegration  and  disorder.  In 
a  nation  where  there  is  no  central  authority  in  con- 
trol, which  can  quickly  arrange  its  ideas  and  wishes 
into  some  sort  of  unity  and  express  its  will  in  the 
form  of  some  well-defined  policy,  periods  of  disin- 
tegration and  disorder,  whether  in  politics,  busi- 
ness or  religious  belief  and  practise,  are  more  obvi- 
ous, if  less  dangerous,  and  seem  to  require  much 
more  of  debate,  of  fuss,  of  contention  and  of  delay, 
in  their  effort  to  reach  a  succeeding  period  of  ac- 
ceptable readjustment. 

But  the  interest  of  the  nation  in  the  education  of 
the  whole  people  is  very  real ;  and  because  it  is  the 
education  of  the  whole  people,  this  interest  is  the 
more  likely  to  be  permanent  and  to  extend  to  the 
entire  body  of  the  people.  The  devising  and  the 
testing  of  measures  for  its  improvement,  however, 
and  the  regulation  of  text-books  and  methods  and 
examinations  and  other  ways  of  discovering 
whether  the  individual  is  worthy  of  promotion, 
will  probably  continue  to  be  left  to  the  decision  of 
the  professional  educators.  In  a  word,  the  work 
of  teaching  will  probably  become  less  and  less  a 


324     THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

temporary  makeshift  for  earning  a  decent  living, 
and  more  and  more  a  profession  chosen  for  a  life- 
time of  devoted  service.  This  is,  in  my  judgment, 
a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished.  And  as  it 
is  more  and  more  attained,  all  the  larger  matters 
affecting  the  whole  educational  policy  of  the  na- 
tion, from  kindergarten  to  the  graduate  and  the 
professional  schools,  will  be  committed  to  the  body 
of  professional  teachers. 

The  problem  of  supplying  the  deficiencies  and 
remedying  the  evils  of  the  existing  system  of  edu- 
cation in  this  country,  therefore,  resolves  itself 
largely  into  the  question:  How  shall  we  manage  to 
secure  a  sufficiently  large  body  of  men  and  women, 
who  are  well  equipped,  skilled  in  practise,  with 
high  but  practicable  ideals,  and  devoted  spirits, 
who  are  willing  to  follow  the  life  of  the  professional 
teacher?  There  are  many  influences  which  are 
operating  powerfully  against  the  speedy  and  suc- 
cessful solution  of  this  problem.  The  falling-off 
in  the  disciplinary  character  of  the  education  af- 
forded by  many  of  those  institutions  of  the  higher 
learning  to  which  we  must  look,  or  at  least,  to 
which  we  ought  to  look,  for  the  preparation  of  our 
best  teachers,  is  not  the  least  powerful  of  these 
opposing  forces.  But  the  colleges  and  universities 
are  beginning  to  realize,  and  to  make  efforts  to 
check,  if  not  wholly  to  abolish,  the  more  extreme 
evils  of  a  too  unlimited  election  of  studies  and  the 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  326 

too  few  rigidly  enforced  exactions  of  a  disciplinary 
curriculum.  The  public  schools  of  the  country  are 
probably  moving  in  advance  of  the  colleges  and 
universities  with  measures  for  mitigating  similar 
evils  in  their  own  grades  of  the  educational  system. 

There  is  sufficient  reason,  then,  why  I  should 
utter  with  a  cheerful  and  somewhat  confident  voice, 
the  closing  words  with  which  I  wish  to  set  forth 
certain  considerations  of  a  practical  sort  that  fol- 
low from  my  view  of  the  importance  and  the  dig- 
nity of  the  work  of  the  professional  teacher. 

And,  first  of  all,  I  think  that  we  teachers  should 
not  infrequently  be  reminded  to  maintain  and 
even  to  increase  a  certain  sentiment  of  self-respect. 
We  are  constantly  under  the  influence  of  tempta- 
tions either  to  lower  this  sentiment  or  to  convert 
it  into  self-conceit  by  placing  it  upon  shallow  and 
false  grounds.  The  influences  of  the  spirit  of 
commercialism,  now  current  and  even  rampant,  are 
distinctly  toward  degrading  the  estimate  of  the 
value  of  culture  of  mind  and  heart,  as  such,  espe- 
cially in  some  of  the  most  important  fields  of  cul- 
ture. The  same  influence  can  not  fail  to  operate 
for  the  degradation  of  the  professional  standing 
of  the  teacher.  This  it  does,  partly,  by  attracting 
to  itself,  in  the  pursuit  of  wealth,  so  many  of  the 
brighter  minds;  partly  also  by  keeping  down  the 
financial  and  social  compensation  of  the  teaching 
profession;  and,  partly,  by  depressing  the  spirit 


326     THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

with  which  so  many  of  the  too  sensitive  minds 
among  the  class  of  teachers  approach  their  dutiful 
work.  *^Only  a  teacher"  is  a  designation,  almost 
an  epithet,  which  many  of  our  number  can  with 
difficulty  learn  complacently  to  bear.  But  Con' 
fucius  was  a  teacher,  and  The  Buddha  was  a 
teacher ;  and  above  all  others,  Jesus  was  a  teacher. 
No  other  of  the  professions — ^not  even  that  of  the 
ministry  or  of  the  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
unless  it  is  made  to  include  the  function  of  teach- 
ing— is  comparable,  in  importance  and  in  dignity, 
with  the  profession  of  the  teacher.  ^^Only  a 
teacher,"  indeed,  but  what  would  you  more?  For 
the  teacher  has  rather  a  superior  right  to  be  proud 
of  his  chosen  profession,  and  to  think  well  of  him- 
self, in  a  reasonable  way,  if  he  is  discharging  its 
duties  faithfully,  as  one  to  whom  has  been  com- 
mitted by  the  public,  in  trust,  a  most  important  and 
dignified  kind  of  work. 

Following  the  same  line  of  thinking,  and  the 
practical  suggestions  which  grow  out  of  it,  I  am 
quite  ready  to  plead  for  the  cultivation  of  more 
of  a  professional  spirit — a  sort  of  suitable  esprit 
de  corps — among  the  teachers  of  the  land.  In  ad- 
vising this,  I  am  not  meaning  to  encourage  that 
narrow  and  vain  state  of  mind  which  is  the  bane 
of  so  many  class-distinctions.  But  the  work  of  the 
teacher  is,  essentially  considered,  that  of  a  **  learned 
profession";  and  those  who  are  engaged  in  that 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  327 

work  should  regard  and  respect  it  as  sucli.  More- 
over, the  teachers  of  the  country  should  stand  to- 
gether, each  with  all  the  others,  in  all  reasonable 
ways,  and  as  representing  a  common  cause  that  is 
well  worthy  of  upholding.  I  fear,  however,  that  I 
am  not  exaggerating,  but  the  rather  understating 
the  truth,  when  I  confess  that  petty  jealousies  and 
unseemly  scramblings  or  secret  contrivances  to  se- 
cure promotion  and  place ;  and  too  little  sympathy 
and  too  much  bitterness  in  the  discussion  and  prac- 
tical enforcement  of  conflicting  views;  and  other 
faults  of  our  own — all  these  causes  may  be  hinder- 
ing the  large  accession  of  recognized  influence  over, 
not  only  strictly  educational,  but  also  over  social 
and  political  and  moral  affairs,  which  legitimately 
belongs  to  the  professional  teachers  in  any  land. 
Are  you  aware  of  what  is  the  social  and  political 
status  of  the  representatives  of  the  class  engaged 
in  the  active  work  of  education,  as  accorded  by  the 
Government  of  some  others  of  the  civilized  nations  ? 
In  Japan,  for  example,  the  Minister  of  Education 
takes  rank  with  all  the  other  ministers — as  the 
Minister  of  the  Army,  the  Minister  of  Justice,  etc. ; 
the  permanent  President  of  the  National  Teachers' 
Association  is  a  baron  and  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Peers,  altho  not  above  superintending  the  erec- 
tion of  a  suitable  platform  for  the  speakers  at  any 
of  the  meetings  of  the  association;  the  Emperor 
decorates  and  appoints  to  positions  in  the  Upper 


328     THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

House  those  who  have  rendered  distinguished  ser- 
vices to  the  nation,  in  science,  literature,  phil- 
osophy, or  art;  and  to  be  called  sensi  (or 
** teacher,''  with  a  strong  touch  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment meaning  of  the  word  ** master,")  is  a  title 
which  any  one  may  be  proud  to  bear.  I  must  con- 
fess to  a  feeling  of  shock  when  I  was  told  by  one 
present  that  the  memorial  service  of  the  late 
United  States  Commissioner  of  Education,  the  Hon. 
William  T.  Harris,  was  attended  in  Washington 
by  less  than  a  score  of  people ;  and  when  I  remem- 
bered at  the  same  time  how  ten  thousand  followed 
to  its  burial  place,  in  the  rain  and  on  foot,  the 
body  of  the  great  Japanese  teacher,  Mr.  Fuku- 
zawa,  several  years  ago.  To  be  sure  we  can  not  ex- 
pect, and  perhaps  we  ought  not  to  desire  any 
precisely  similar  forms  of  recognition  in  this 
country  to  the  importance  and  dignity  of  the  work 
of  the  professional  teacher.  But  none  the  less 
surely  is  it  for  our  professional  advantage,  and — 
what  is  much  more  important — for  the  educational 
advantage  of  the  whole  people,  to  maintain  a  high 
standard  of  recognition  for  the  worthiness  and 
dignity  of  the  class  of  men  and  women  to  whom  the 
educational  interests  of  the  country  are  chiefly 
committed.  If  we  understand  the  scope  of  educa- 
tion in  the  way  in  which  I  have  tried  to  commend 
the  word  to  your  attention  during  this  entire  course 
of  lectures,  we  can  not  conclude  otherwise  than 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  329 

that  the  educational  interests  are  the  most  impor- 
tant interests  of  the  nation  at  large. 

The  securing  from  the  different  communities, 
and  from  the  whole  nation,  of  an  improved  and 
heightened  estimate  of  the  importance  and  the  dig- 
nity of  the  teacher's  work  in  education  is  something 
for  which  it  is  well  worth  our  while  to  strive  dili- 
gently and  persistently.  But  how  shall  this  desir- 
able result  be  attained?  Of  course,  so  far  as  the 
individual  teacher  is  concerned,  and  indeed  to  a 
considerable  extent  so  far  as  the  whole  body  of 
teachers  is  concerned,  this  must  chiefly  be  done  by 
proving  the  estimate  to  be  needful  and  correct. 
The  community  and  the  State  are  dependent,  far 
more  than  is  realized  or  is  easily  made  realizable, 
for  their  welfare  and  their  progress,  upon  the 
quality  of  the  teachers  employed  in  their  public 
schools  and  in  their  higher  institutions  of  learning. 
But  for  the  teachers  themselves  to  set  out  in  any 
deliberate  and  joint  effort  to  make  the  public 
properly  aware  of  this  condition  of  dependence  and 
compel  them  to  acknowledge  it  in  practical  ways, 
is  to  undertake  a  somewhat  delicate  and  difficult 
job.  It  is,  however,  in  my  judgment,  something 
well  worth  trying  for  in  certain  ways.  The  means 
of  which  the  trades  unions,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  syndicates  and  trusts  on  the  other  hand,  avail 
themselves,  to  enforce  this  feeling  of  dependence, 
are,  for  the  most  part,  not  available  by  the  pro- 


330     THE  TEACHER'S  PRACTICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

fessional  teachers.  And  besides,  many  of  these 
measures  are  not  altogether  honorable,  and  not  a 
few  are  distinctly  dishonest.  Nevertheless,  I  think 
that  the  teachers  in  the  public  schools  and  in  the 
State  universities  ought  to  stand  together  against 
political  influence  and  political  intrigues ;  and  that 
in  our  private  colleges  and  universities  they  ought 
unitedly  to  resist  the  President  * '  boss, ' '  or  the  un- 
due interference  and  dictation  on  educational  mat- 
ters, of  the  corporations  or  boards  of  trustees,  who 
have  their  financial  affairs  in  charge.  I  have  not 
the  least  doubt  that  if  this  were  done  the  country 
over,  in  a  reasonable,  firm,  intelligent  and  united 
way,  the  profession  would  greatly  gain  in  its  per- 
sonnel, and  in  its  legitimate  influence ;  and  that  the 
whole  cause  of  the  nation's  system  of  education 
would  be  greatly  profited  thereby.  For  I  am  only 
** harking  back''  to  the  point  from  which  we  set  out 
on  the  trail  that  we  have  been  following  thru  this 
entire  course  of  lectures,  when  I  remind  you  that 
it  is  personal  character,  and  the  ethics  of  personal 
intercourse,  that  furnishes  all  the  principal  prob- 
lems, as  well  as  the  most  feasible  solution  of  them 
all,  however  many  and  great  they  may  be,  as  con- 
nected with  our  national  system  of  education. 

And,  finally,  fellow  teachers,  never  let  down  your 
ideals.  But  remember,  an  ideal  is  always  some- 
thing beyond  present  attainments;  a  something 
never  quite  realized.     That  is  its  nature  and  the 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  331 

source  of  its  value  as  an  ideal.  It  must,  then,  not 
be  lowered  or  abandoned,  but  pursued  with  pa-^ 
tience  and  steadfastness  and  itself  constantly  be 
clarified  and  improved. 


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JUL    101934 

^ruT  nM  li  1 

MAR  1  n  1995 

U.  C.  BERKELEY 

LD  21-100m-7,*33 

YB  46 


ouo 


"Wvi* 


